Anti Frustration Features / Xenoblade Chronicles 1

• Xenoblade Chronicles 1 is known for two things: Having a load of sidequests (that often require you to collect items that spawn randomly across the world or backtrack to areas to find them), and having a large world map. Naturally, you receive quite a bit of Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Some quests don't actually require you to speak to the questgiver again, and you are given an instant reward of experience right there for fulfilling the objectives. For the quests that do require you to seek down the questgiver again, at the very least it makes sense in-universe as to why you should go back to them, but in addition...
  • The game has a Fast travel mechanic that has zero cost to the player, allowing you to visit landmarks you have already been to. Fortunately, most questgivers are very close to those landmarks.
  • Some items are Permanently Missable. So you need some items to rebuild Colony 6 that only spawn in areas of The Mechonis? Not a problem! They can also spawn around Colony 6 or obtained other ways.
  • In addition, some enemies or collectables only spawn at certain times of day - the game lets you change the time at will. Unfortunately, some also only spawn during certain weather conditions, which you can't control.
  • If an aggressive enemy's level is six or lower than yours, they won't attack first unless they're a Unique Monster, a boss, or a story enemy. They also have a damage, defense, evasion, and experience penalty.
  • The five endgame superbosses, which have levels above the level cap of 99, have low base Agility (a combination of evasion and accuracy) to lessen the incredibly high Agility bonuses granted by the level difference between them and you.
  • Definitive Edition has several new features that make things much less frustrating:
    • Marking enemies and collectables on your map (if needed for quests), making them much easier to find than in the original game.
    • Monsters with Spike auras have a special icon on their enemy portrait, so that you know ahead of time.
    • You can access the Colony 6 reconstruction list from the quest log menu, rather than having to go back to Juju in Colony 6 to check every time.
    • You no longer have to worry about serious scenes potentially being ruined by the characters' outfits, if they're outfitted with something that has great stats but aren't appropriate for the fate of the world (like swimwear). You can set each character to have a certain outfit in scenes, while wearing whatever armor you wish for gameplay.
    • You can straight up buy rare collectibles required for reconstructing Colony 6 (such as ice cabbages or black liver beans) from the newly added challenge mode, thus removing the frustration of hunting them down from item orbs' RNG.
• The world of Xenoblade Chronicles X is huge and unforgiving, but there are a lot of features to make life a bit easier, many shared with its predecessor:
  • Fast travel points are even more frequent than before, with no penalty for using them. You also get the option to fast-travel to your Skell, which can make grinding enemies a bit easier.
  • Having trouble getting 20 Bear Asses? You can buy them directly at a terminal in your barracks, as long as you're able to access the online servers to obtain the special currency to buy them.
  • Fail multiple times during a story or affinity quest's boss battle, and you get the option to lower the boss's level by 5. Normal missions are exempt, however.
  • When you or a party member is revived during battle, you/they have a short period of Mercy Invincibility.
  • If a party member's Skell is totaled, that Skell won't lose any insurance as long as it has at least one unit of insurance left.
  • Aggressive enemies will not attack if your level is at least ten levels above theirs. Tyrants, hidden enemies, and story/mission enemies are exempt.
  • Does a quest require you to use a weapon from a class that doesn't match yours? Just grab a party member who can use it! You don't have to change your class.
  • Most Basic Missions are automatically completed as soon as you fulfill the objectives, rather than you having to go back and turn them in.
  • When selling a Skell, the game will ask if you want to unequip all its gear first. Trying to sell an item that has an Augment added on will have the game ask if you want to remove the augment.
  • Weapons that must be used to complete a normal or affinity mission cannot be sold. Unfortunately, not all of these special weapons are removed from your inventory during the quest, so they're stuck in your inventory forever.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is just as huge and full of sidequests as its predecessors. It also has a few ways to make it easier.
  • Unique Monsters are now permanently killed upon defeat meaning they can not interrupt and knock everyone senseless should you forget it was around while backtracking. If for some reason you do want to fight them again, the tombstone near where they were originally will let you do that.
  • Staying at an inn in an area with a Heart to Heart nearby will cause a small scene to play telling you where the Heart to Heart is.
  • The map shows Skip Travel points, Heart to Hearts, the next location for an active quest and whether there is any sidequests around.
  • Collectables are simplified. Now they are obtained though special collectable points as opposed to scattered throughout the world. Each point gives out items related to where it is (so rocks will give minerals and patches of grassland will give plants and bugs) and a quest giver will generally tell you the general location where the collectable they want is.
  • Blade affinity charts have a lot of little tasks, usually of the "Use X attack Y times", "Kill X of enemy", or "Collect X of Y item" variety. Instead of tracking down random enemies and items all over the world and making sure you have the right blade equipped while doing so, these can be accomplished on merc missions, even if the mission has nothing to do with that area or combat at all. This means that large portions of most blade affinity charts can be filled in with minimal player effort, and is a redeeming quality to the otherwise hated Bearing Her Soul.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 3 streamlines even more elements from its predecessors.
  • Silver and Gold Nopon Coins can be traded in for a number of things, from class levels, to Collectopedia requests, to meals and gems, greatly relieving a lot of the grinding and fetch questing that previous entries in the series had required.
  • After defeating a Unique Monster, the Named Gravestone that gets left behind also becomes a Quick Travel point, making it much easier to return for rematches.
  • The player can engage enemies and do battle without any restrictions even in deep water.
  • When traversing damaging terrain, AI-controlled party members will always have at least 1 HP remaining. Only the party lead controlled by the player has to worry about getting back to safety. A field skill unlocked near the end of the game completely negates terrain damage.
  • When fighting an enemy at the side of a cliff, using Arts that throw the character forward will not cause them to fall over the edge.
  • Crafted gems can be used on multiple characters, and only need to be forged once. In addition, later tiers can be forged without having to complete the previous tier.
  • The random Keves and Agnus squads found throughout Aionios are scaled to a level depending on the player's warning levels with those nations (and later, with Moebius as a whole), which increase as more colonies are liberated from the Flame Clocks. It's a means to fight enemies on the player's own level for the sake of making progress with unlocking hero classes and reaping CP.
  • All six protagonists share the same access to the same arts across all classes, with the only difference being how fast each character can level through each class. This prevents the serious cases of inequality for characters with certain weapons and increases the versatility of different character-class combinations immensely. With the advent of learning master arts to create fusion arts, any class can potentially be customized to one's specific likings without risking drawbacks.
  • Positional arts during Chain Attacks can trigger their effects from any direction, removing the necessity to micromanage your team before activating it.
  • Two Nopon NPCs in the Aetia and Cadensia regions can call upon rain on demand, which can help with some side quests and even finding some Unique Monsters in Cadensia which only appear when it's raining.
  • Although it's somewhat hidden, you can view the unlock conditions for each Hero's Ascension Quest by selecting them in the Hero Roster, averting Guide Dang It!. This is especially helpful for the more obscure unlocks, such as Triton's requiring you to cook Manana's Battle Soup while he's in the party.
  • The Nopon traders at the Namba Mound Camp unlocked by doing Ino's Hero Quest (part of the game's DLC) sell monster materials that are used in Manana's various cooking dishes.

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