First, it may be prudent to change the laconic, which incorrectly describes this trope as an Acceptable Break from Reality.
It's really more about an acceptable break from established game mechanics.
Check out my fanfiction!The name "Anti-frustating features" is misleading.
There are two types IMO
- Patched Out Frustrating Features or Patched Quality Of Life Upgrades: Game patched out x frustration feature. The frustrating feature is gone, bye bye
- Sequel Upgraded Quality Of Life Features: The sequel changed certain features that made THAT game easier when compared to the original. The original is left completely intact.
Now hidden features like Blizzard's so called "Pity Timer" where each X you do you get your odds of getting a good drop increased would be just an anti-frustation feature.
edited 18th Dec '16 7:59:26 PM by Memers
The sequel version is probably covered by Sequel Difficulty Drop already.
Not really, I mean say adding a button that will let you go to the world map instead of having to go all the way to the edge of the zone like Persona 4 and Persona 3 Portable did to address one of the complaints about Persona 3 isnt a difficulty drop its just a quality of life change.
I think there's a difference between, "feature that makes the game more comfortable to play," and, "feature that breaks established game mechanics for the purpose of ensuring the player doesn't get stuck or avoiding things being needlessly frustrating." The trope's defined as the latter, but is often used as the former, probably because of the missing supertrope syndrome.
Check out my fanfiction!
Yes. The game has to detect the player has become stuck or otherwise in a situation they can't resolve and actively help.
For that reason, I would not consider the page quote about mid-boss checkpoints to be an AFF, because it's not done in reaction to player performance. They're there from the start, they just make the game easier altogether and simply designing an easy game is not an Anti-Frustration Feature.
Also we should erase the parentheses equating this to "quality of life" patches. It's misleading. Qo L is generally used to refer to things which don't affect gameplay.
Quality of life changes do affect gameplay like revamped spell rotations to make them easier or less frustrating, revamping the UI so you have less bag space frustrations, removing elements of RNG from the game etc.
But those are typically patch or sequel changes which would be the trope that I think needs to be split off from this.
Perhaps some of those examples would be in Author's Saving Throw instead.
We don't need justice when we can forgive. We don't need tolerance when we can love.

I've tried this before, but it got shot down due to lack of evidence. Which I presume means I needed to do the ol' wick check, so here we go.
I mainly see two types of misuse of this trope: the literal type (where people think it refers to any feature that makes the game less frustrating than it would otherwise be, even if it's a regular part of the game and not a response to a specific situation), and the sequel type (where it's used to refer to sequels making game mechanics from previous games less frustrating- which might even include removing features rather than adding them). There are currently 1187 links to it, so let's just check the A's:
So... yeah, there is indeed a lot of misuse here.