Anti Frustration Features / World of Warcraft

• In the base game, one of the things that helped it become popular was that, for its time, the game had a lot of anti-frustration features compared to a lot of MMORPGs at the time. For example:
  • The fact that you could level up to 60 (max at the time) by yourself. Even EverQuest and Dark Age of Camelot often made it significantly easier when you had a group.
  • Dying in World of Warcraft was significantly less traumatic than in other games. Most other games, upon death, your body would explode into a pile of loot (with only a few items that would remain your inventory) and you would be given either an XP Debt or a flat out penalty to xp. Once you gained experience, your experience would stay. This, along with the fact that items would stay in your inventory was a big thing at the time.
  • Quests were marked by NPCs having quest markers on them. Before, you had to speak to an NPC to see if they had a quest.
  • Gatherable resources like Ores and Herbs could be tracked by players and would appear on the mini-map.
  • Player-caused deaths did not cause durability loss to your equipment.
  • The concept of soulbound gear and resources. Most other MMORPGs at the time allowed virtually any item to be traded and sold to players, and sometimes they didn't even have a minimum requirement to equip the item. Thus, players would save their suits of gear and give it to a lower-level player, causing them to receive a massive competitive advantage. Soulbound gear meant that most items could only be used by the player who found them, even the high quality items you could transfer.
• In the Burning Crusade expansion, Blizzard introduced a "dynamic respawn" system which scales respawn rates to the rate that mobs/items are killed or collected. This backfired somewhat as it often caused mobs to instantly respawn on top of players, especially in the first weeks of the expansion, preventing them from resting or looting and making crowded areas an exercise in Attack! Attack... Retreat! Retreat!. Still, it beats the old days when crowding made certain quests a matter of racing other players for infrequent spawns.
• One of the reasons that quest items cannot be sold to vendors is that they often look identical to Shop Fodder items. No one wants to try to complete a quest, only to learn that they accidentally sold their "Pristine Bear Tooth" when they were trying to hand in an ordinary animal tooth.
• Dungeons received a number of upgrades through expansions and patching.
  • In the original game, going to a dungeon involved finding five people on your server. Then, every one of you would have to make your way to the dungeon, for the first forty levels by foot. This dungeon could be located on a different continent. If someone dropped out after you'd arrived, all that time was wasted. Many of the dungeons were also surrounded by labyrinthine tunnels, often full of elite units. Eventually, meeting stones were introduced, which were stones located near to dungeons that allowed two players to summon the rest. On top of that, looking for group chats were separated by zone. While this makes sense so players looking for help with a level 20ish quest wouldn't be shouted over by people asking for help for endgame content, it was unfortunate for players who needed to look for dungeon groups. Because most players clustered in cities, most people would hang out there - and if it was on the other side of the world or behind a long flight path, this meant players had to run all the way back, since most players wouldn't "Happen" to be nearby. This was especially bad for instances in areas that were extremely out of the way for their faction (Scarlet Monastery, Shadowfang Keep, or any Razorfen dungeons for Alliance players; Gnomeregan for Horde players).
  • Dungeons released after the initial version tended to be located in less inconvenient places, and the final boss was located near an alternate route to the exit so players didn't have to go all the way back through the often very large dungeons to leave.
  • The Wrath of the Lich King expansion introduced the "dungeon finder" system. A player puts their name on it as their character type, and the game automatically searches through everyone in the system in the same geographical area, enabling players to sign up and then carry on with other tasks until a group is found. Once that's done, it gives party members the temporary ability to teleport between the dungeon and wherever they were.
  • The "Dungeon Finder" also gave players the ability to experience dungeons they normally wouldn't - for example, Alliance players would get to visit Ragefire Chasm, Wailing Caverns, Shadowfang Keep, or Razorfen Kraul despite having no quests (Unless one knew where to look in Thousand Needles), and horde players could visit Deadmines or Gnomeregan without having to use the convoluted method to teleport there that some players didn't know was there until 2019.
  • Certain dungeons that were known for being a Marathon Level were broken up into "Wings" or sections. Some such as Scarlet Monastery and Maraudon were already broken up into wings, others like Blackrock Depths, Maraudon, or Blackrock Spire were notorious for being very long and mazelike. Maraudon was mentioned twice because while there were three entrances, one had to be unlocked as a shortcut and the other two were mutually exclusive.
• Originally, healing characters were completely worthless when not in a group, having no damage to speak of and taking significantly longer to destroy anything solo. Part of this was because their gear only boosted healing power, not damage; even if they tried to get a set of damage boosting gear, it would never be as powerful. This was fixed by merging +healing into +spellpower, allowing healing gear to double as damage gear. Healers were still not able to match damaged-focused characters, but at least healers could now look after themselves.
  • There were a number of solo class missions in early WoW which were required to get special skills or abilities. These solo missions were usually designed to be somewhat challenging to make one 'earn' the ability;, however, they didn't always consider specialization when being designed. What was a 'slightly challenging' fight for a more solo-friendly spec could be brutal for a healer of equal gear. These solo missions were phased out after Burning Crusade.
  • The Dual Spec ability further addressed this issue with healers. With the ability to switch between specialties, healers could have a separate damage spec that was used for solo content. Some chose to still not have a solo spec, but at least the option was there. Then, Dual Spec was done away with in favor of being able to change specs any time, with the action bar layouts saving. Likewise, talents can be changed at will in rest areas.
• Several of these were implemented to cut down on the Fake Difficulty present in "Vanilla" and Burning Crusade.
  • Because the playerbase has a tendency to declare themselves "done" when they finish everything, a lot of people would be stuck asking around to do the raids they needed when the people who were more than geared to do it wouldn't lift a finger. This was changed to allow people to purchase gear that can get them ready for the current raid that everybody wants to run.
  • Reducing the requirements for Heroics. In Burning Crusade, the Heroics required you to run the dungeon enough so that you are revered with the appropriate faction and can purchase the Heroic Key. Sure enough, the above problem of players who declared themselves "done" resulted in lower-level players getting stuck in a Catch-22 Dilemma. They needed higher-level players to help them get the high-level gear, but the higher-level players wanted them to have high-level gear before they would help. Cataclysm brought back requirements for heroics, but even then, it was far more doable than in Burning Crusade, thanks to the addition of the Dungeon Finder.
  • Updating PvP Gear so newly-made PvP Characters can purchase up-to-date PvP Gear.
  • Removing attunements. These were toned down or flat-out removed so people wouldn't have to stand around cities for months asking for help or bribing people to go through as, once again, players declared themselves "done" with them.
  • Reducing the number of people that are run by raids in general. Anyone who says they liked forty-player raids better has never tried to corral forty people through Molten Core, or tried to sync forty real-life schedules so everyone can run at once.
• In patch 3.2, the drop rates of quest items were made dynamic so that players would be guaranteed to eventually find the items they're looking for.
• In patch 3.3, Blizzard finally caved to all the players who used addons that marked the map with the locations of questgivers and objectives by implementing a system for this into the core game. Never again was "Where's Mankrik's wife?" heard in the Barrens.
• In patch 3.3.3, quest items in your bags/bank are highlighted with an orange-yellow border so you can find them among dozens of other items, some of which have the same icon.
• In the Cataclysm expansion, most new dungeons were given a teleporte' that allowed you to skip to various points in the dungeon if you die and have to run back in, and this feature was also present in some raid dungeons. For example, in Grim Batol, once you defeat the second boss, the drakes near the entrance will fly you to the end of his hall, and after defeating the third boss, the drakes will take you to where you fought him.
  • In some Mists of Pandaria dungeons, if you die and re-enter the dungeon, you will appear at the location of the last boss you defeated, obviating the need to have teleporters.
• Many bosses in various dungeons have a mechanic to reset them. Normally, hostile NPCs in dungeons will pursue fleeing players until the players are dead or have left the dungeon. If a group gets wiped out to the last man by a tough boss, regrouping can be a slow, annoying process. Fortunately, some bosses will not pursue fleeing players to the ends of the earth. Instead, they'll despawn when pulled out of their throne room and reappear in their starting point a few minutes later, so any surviving players may have a few minutes to resurrect their fallen teammates in peace, saving a lot of time and aggravation.
• Archaeology has received several anti-frustration measures over time. Individual artifacts now give you between five to nine fragments instead of three to five, allowing you to complete projects quicker. Each dig site lets you dig up six artifacts at a time instead of three, meaning that you spend more time actually at the dig sites instead of flying between them. Completed Mists of Pandaria projects can be traded in for fragments for another race of your choosing. Most importantly, the chance of getting a dig site for a faction once you have already completed all of their projects is significantly reduced.
• In the Looking for Raid feature, starting with Patch 5.2, there's a "Determination" buff that gives you a stack that increases your damage, healing, and maximum health by five percent every time you die against a boss after fighting it for at least two minutes, a feature designed to encourage players to persist against a tough opponent. This can help in raids in which some players are undergeared, although many will quit in frustration before getting more than a few stacks.
• Expansions gradually increased the amount of money dropped. This made things like getting the maximum level of riding for your mount much much easier.
• Mists of Pandaria introduced the Proving Grounds, an area where your character goes, selects a role (tank, dps, or heal) and fulfills that role with a group of 4 NPCs against an enemy encounter that does a reasonably good job of replicating a series of dungeon fights. To be able to queue for more difficult dungeons as that role you need to have completed it on the silver difficulty level. This has the twin benefits of letting people get a little practice with a new role without screwing other people over, and ensures that you'll be grouped only with people who are at least capable of being halfway competent.
• Mists of Pandaria's Siege of Orgrimmar expansion introduced 'flexible raids', which automatically scale bosses to allow raid groups containing anywhere from 10 to 25 members. This means that if 14 players from your guild want to raid then you don't have to exclude four of them due to an Arbitrary Headcount Limit. This system will be expanded upon in the next expansion to become the default option for raids.
• Having learned from Warlords of Draenor where bodyguards didn't level up while accompanying players, in Legion bodyguards earn experience for every quest you complete, meaning you can have a fulltime bodyguard while leveling without having to spend an eternity catching them up to your other champions.
• As of 7.1, players can now buy resources for their Class Hall with Blood of Sargeras and the package they come in is even account bound so players with an excess of Bloods can send some resources to their resource starved alts.
• By definition, Heirlooms. Want to level a new character but don't want to deal with the hassle of slowly leveling them up? You can buy the appropriate heirlooms for their class (without having to even mail them as your alts can create their own copy), and get over fifty percent more experience from everything, as well as the equipment itself scaling to always be as good as a high-end blue for your level, making you a powerhouse by that level's standards. Furthermore, heirlooms can be upgraded to be usable until you reach the current expansion.
• For over a decade, if you needed to kill something but someone else hit it first, you'd get no credit and no loot. As of Legion, up to five players can "tag" an enemy and receive credit for killing it, greatly easing questing in busy areas. This was also applied to resource nodes like herbs and mineral veins.
• Group Finder allows players to find a group for anything from old raids to quests to roleplaying without standing around in a city spamming trade chat. This is especially useful for elite world quests or achievements that require a group.
• Battle for Azeroth introduced the Scrapper, which breaks down items of uncommon quality or higher into their base materials. While it only gives back a fraction of the materials used to make crafted items, it eases player's needs to farm for crafting materials, especially since they can scrap old or unwanted gear as well.
• Changing talents used to require paying a class trainer to reset all of a player's talents and the cost to do so kept increasing ad infinitum with every use. Mists of Pandaria did away with talent trees and instead introduced tiers where every 15 levels players would choose one of three talents independent of what they chose in other tiers. Not only can said talents be changed at any time in a rest area, but Legion introduced tomes that can be bought cheaply which allow players to change their talents so long as they're out of combat, and players can change their talents for free at the start of a dungeon, in case they use different ones for open world content and group content. Dragonflight went a step further, allowing talents to be changed at any time so long as you're out of combat and no skills are on cooldown.
• In Legion, gear won from world quests improved as players' gear improved but eventually capped unless they were running world quests on Argus which gave better gear. In Battle for Azeroth, each new raid causes the winnable gear from world quests to improve, allowing players to get ready for the current raid simply by completing world quests.
• Several past expansions after the shift to a more focused story had a frustrating tendency to lock quest lines behind beating the raids, which meant that unless you had a group that could clear at least normal, players would be several weeks behind waiting for the final wing of the Raid Finder to unlock. As of Shadowlands they've decided to change it so that you don't need to do this anymore and the story will advance anyway. This is especially important since the Venthyr campaign involves Kael'thas, who is rescued in a boss fight skipping forward under the assumption the raid has been beaten, especially nice of them to do since the LFR release schedule was pushed back to bi-weekly instead of weekly, meaning if players waited for the final wing of Castle Nathria to unlock in Raid Finder, they would have been stuck waiting until February to advance their campaign while everyone else got to finish the second week of January.
• Related to the above, Allied Races have been given a lot of Anti-frustration features as well as had some built in:
  • The first four Allied Races (Nightborne, Highmountain Tauren, Lightforged Draenei, Void Elves) were tied to factions introduced in Legion. You only needed to unlock this once.
  • Later on, the reptutation requirements were removed entirely and simply came instead whenever a player had a level 40-50 character on any server in any faction. This was much appreciated, since unlocking the Allied Races required a hefty time investment and in the case of Nightborne, included a raid that was no longer casually done by Battle for Azeroth.
  • Mechagnomes in particular deserve mention - as this required players to also complete a dungeon which was only available on Mythic. Fortunately, players could accomplish this on the lowest tier of difficulty, could receive credit for it on a Horde character, and Mechagon was later on made into a Heroic dungeon that players could queue for specifically.
  • An update in Dragonflight removed practically all prerequisites to starting the recruitment quests entirely. Now only the player character needs to be of a certain level to start each recruitment quest to be able to unlock each Allied Race.
• Some quest objectives require you to damage an enemy to near death without killing it, which can be difficult if you outlevel the enemy. The Foam Sword allows you to reduce a trivially easy enemy's health without killing it, making it easier to do these kinds of quests.
• Dragonflight:
  • Unlocking dragonriding unlocks it for the entire account, so alts can immediately start flying on arriving. The same applies to collecting glyphs used to unlock new dragonriding talents, so each alt will have the same number as the main character.
  • Reaching Renown 10 and 20 with a reputation unlocks a 100% boost for any alts below that renown level. This mean a fresh alt will receive 200% bonus reputation up to Renown 10, significantly speeding up grinds for profession patterns, toys, and items.
  • Reputation tokens are bind on pickup until a character reaches maximum Renown with the faction. At that point they become bind on account and can be sent to alts to speed up their reputation gain.
  • Catalyst charges must be earned each week, but all characters will receive a charge for the quest.
  • On occasion, the Traveler's Log will require a specific quest or quest chain to be completed to receive credit. If your character has already done it, logging onto that character will give you credit as well as the points for the Tender. You can also complete them on another character to also get credit for it as well.
  • Multiple bosses since Classic have had a "Deep Breath" attack. In just about every incarnation, in part due to a mixture of poorly telegraphed zones and requiring players to look up (Something a lot of players have trouble doing in any game) it's been That One Attack. Fyrakk does have a Deep Breath attack, but the danger zone is telegraphed on the ground, so players don't have to adjust their camera.
• For those who either joined later or didn't have the time, Pathfinder automatically unlocked on Draenor, Broken Isles, and Battle for Azeroth zones.

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