Everything Flies

I understand WHY all mounts now fly, I just hate it. It started with the T-Rex and it just kept going. And now our Coeurls and everything will be able to fly soon.

Like, maybe if there was a lore friendly reason as to why these things that shouldn't be able to fly, suddenly can, that would be fine?

I guess I wish they wouldn't invalidate their own world design by eventually allowing us to fly over everything. It just seems strange to me. I love the game and the world, I just can't wrap my head around why they've decided to let everything fly now.

Does anyone else share this sentiment? I know it's silly, but it's just been one of the small things that has bothered me for a long time.

i don't share it since tree's have faces and try to beat me up and some how gods can't one shot my lala even though their pinky toe is bigger than me.

Sometimes gameplay has to take priority over lore and immersion and to me this is one of the cases where thats actually okay. There are mounts that people worked really hard for, but that would be "ground-only" using logic - all of the tank-mounts, Fenrir (the wolf, not the bike - MGP used to be harder to get...) and considering the T-Rex is locked behind Eureka, yep, that one too...
There is also quite a bit of development time that went into creating those mounts in the first place - mounts that would basically end up never being used because with the next expansion 3 out of 4 "gama-areas" will suport flying. Considering that ARR has much smaller zones than HW, SB and (predicted) ShB, I'd take a guess and say that you can probably fly in 80-85% of the game, so every mount that cant fly is basically useless to you most of the time.
On top of that you have mount-specific-music - and yes, yes, requests for a protable orchestrion have been made time and time again, but the truth is right now that we cant have due to how the code works so the best we've got are using mounts with the song we want to listen to. I like Ramuhs one. But I cant reasonbly use the Ramuh-pony right now, because well, it cant fly...

If immersion bothers you - and I can understand that it does or would - there are two things you can do:
1) Only use mounts that you think can/should fly and ignore the rest or use them on the ground only. Sure, you'll see other people use "wrong" mounts, but that doesnt happen very often, at least not to me... (maybe I'm to much at my house and to little in the open world...)
2) This world is pretty magical, so until they provide some actual lore why this and that mount can fly, you can always come up with your own reason. For example: I recall that the reason given for Fenrir being able to fly is that hes not actually flying but using aether/magic to freeze the air right below his feet and is "walking" on that thin layer of ice hes creating in the air. The Shiva pony could be doing something similar.
We have those floating jellyfish everywhere and if memory serves right they can fly because they store gas and some wind(?) aether in special bladders - whos to say that a crazy scientist in the alchemist-guild didnt come up with some sort of mixture that you can inject into the paws of a lion to achieve a similar effect?
Or you use the same explantion we use for the glamour-system and treat mounts that fly but shouldnt as an illusion someone has cast on, lets say their chocobo!

I'm all for lore-friendliness, but we all now that sometimes gameplay and personal preferences have to take priority and I very much feel like this is one of them.

I met Koji at the Vegas Fan Fest and he told me that they mostly give players a baseline for lore and history. They encourage the players themselves to build upon or alter it to fit their need if need be. Like how I altered story to skirt around the naming of my Mi'qote to not have a lore-appropriate name.

Those mounts use aether ("magic") to fly. That's why you have to find and unlock the aether currents in an area before you can actually do it.

That's the same reason as of why chocobos, the most lore friendly mount in the whole game, are able to fly even though their wings are way too small to do it realistically.

So yeah, everything able to manipulate aether or use magitek can fly.

P.S.: Ascians and other creatures can fly, too. And DRG can jump to inhuman heights. And there's people throwing fireballs all around the place. Etc. The point is that this is not the real world, and it has its own laws.

This announcement was actually one of my favorite parts of the recent Live Letter. I believe Yoshi P said himself that the new mounts just WILL the ability to fly. Friggin hilarious.

The lore has been written!

While flying mounts themselves don't bother me, I understand the feeling about consistency, lore, and immersion. I don't see FF14 as the kind of game to go in super intricate levels of detail in every aspect of the world. It's trying to appeal to as large of an audience as it can, so some things are kept simple and standardized. It's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just the type of game it's designed to be.

You can impose your own rules like Vidu suggested. I've willing traveled across Eorzea on the ground before, sometimes I've done it by walking, actually walking and not running. It can help to make the world feel larger and more interesting.

It's either magic or aether manipulation. Same way moogles and continents in HW can float and fly, and the way that everything in the Sea of Clouds just...is.

Some mounts do have specific explanations too, like the Namazu Mikoshi being crafted out of cloudsbreath or whatever it is.

Saying that they've 'invalidated their world design' is a bit dramatic.

After flying elephants, every flying object is legit.

I don't really care if all mounts can fly. I just want to make a favorites list for ground and flying that are different from each other. So I don't end up on a giant bird or dragon when I just want a random horse like mount in non-flying zones.