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.

Magnets.

/10char

Coming from wow i love that every mount can fly, especially when they put a touch of effort into making it goofy or unique animations, e.g the gamora turtle spinning with jet engines, and the car changing into a plane. Love it

The only disappointment is the elephant doesn't fly like dumbo by flapping it's ears

The fat cat mount has a description about how it's possible its ability to fly is due to it really being a voidsent wearing the corpse of a cat, just imagine that whatever mount you're flying is actually a voidsent wearing its corpse as a disguise.

We need The Emperor's New Mount, so we can fly!

i just imagine the living mounts having either eaten a chocobo or a moogle in order to fly.

Did you just ask for a lore reason for flying mounts in a game WITH MAGIC?

fine, the lore reason is MAGIC, it can make Imagination and wishes come true. Just like Disney.

Lmfao

I thought a tiger or something flying might be silly but their four legged claw animals and like have a really neat sort of slither/gliding animation and it feels pretty cool, imo. I feel there are some silly flying mounts but they're already silly on the ground too lol.

Also as others said the lore reason is we're actually using some aether manipulation to fly around with help of learning the aether currents of an area, to be honest I wonder when we'll just be able to fly without a 'mount' similar to our crystal cutscenes/Sayians (like the mount is just you getting into iron man position, it can still use the mount system lol).

It has little impact on me (Though, I wish a few more mounts had better flying animations... Some are just running, but in the air...)

Since, the whole "Aether Manipulation" thing. Really, the thing that irks me about flying is when you can't fly in ARR zones on a Griffon or Dragon that literally has wings and thus shouldn't need aether manipulation to fly...

That and the whole thing with the Kojin blessing where it was "Now you, also all of your mounts, can now breathe underwater! Yay!"

I think some mounts look stupid as all get out, but in the end, it's all done for the sake of convenience/gameplay reasons.

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Originally Posted by savageink

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.

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you can do this you know. set mounts as favorites and then select the option for the roulette to choose only from your favorites.

It bothers me how they dropped all effort into flight animations.

Like, Fenrir simply couldn't be allowed to fly until they'd given it a fancy trail of ice to run on. That's the sort of attention to detail that's nice. Nowadays we have T-Rex's swimming in midair and even the Nine tails or Clouds motorbike doesn't have a flight animation. Just a small nitpick, but I'd rather see them gradually add flight one by one and make it look good rather than give up and make everything run around in the air.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

It bothers me how they dropped all effort into flight animations.

Like, Fenrir simply couldn't be allowed to fly until they'd given it a fancy trail of ice to run on. That's the sort of attention to detail that's nice. Nowadays we have T-Rex's swimming in midair and even the Nine tails or Clouds motorbike doesn't have a flight animation. Just a small nitpick, but I'd rather see them gradually add flight one by one and make it look good rather than give up and make everything run around in the air.

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That's interesting, I like the slither animation (I know a few mounts use something like it) - not saying you're wrong just think its fun that there is a difference in the opinion (swimming silly/not). I always imagined the player was sort of condensing the air and natural aether in the surroundings via their own might and understanding of currents - allowing our mounts to ride/swim upon it. Would love to see the Fenrir Bike get some extra flying touches though :D.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

That and the whole thing with the Kojin blessing where it was "Now you, also all of your mounts, can now breathe underwater! Yay!"

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I didn't let him bless my Fat Chocobo, it helps him swim faster to the surface :3. (jk ofc >.>)

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Sometimes gameplay has to take priority over lore and immersion

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This is what it comes down to.

In this day and age of the game, having mounts that can't fly ultimately means having mounts that don't get used, which is just wasted developer time and effort.

I'm of two minds about it. On one hand, it's awesome you can use any mount whenever you want. One of my issues with flying in WoW was that it automatically invalidated a LOT of mounts due to not being able to fly, and there are some very cool ground mounts in that game, not to mention sometimes you just want a mount that matches your glamour.

On the other hand, some of these mounts it's like they didn't even try. The FF7 bike is a big one to me. The Magitek Armors tuck their legs up and have thrusters, awesome. The Regalia transforms into an airship of a sort, yeah thats something directly from FF15 but still... Meanwhile, the bike just... drives into the air... Surely they could have given it a small transformation? I'd even have accepted having the wheels turn on their sides to become sort of propellers. No change just ruined that bike for me.

Other mounts feel horrible for their flying effects, too. The Behemoth, as incredibly terrifying as it is to realise the thing can literally claw its way into the air then glide around, really feels silly. And why do Ixal direwolves fly better than the Ixal can?

It'd have been better if they gave some sort of explanation. Personally I'd like it if many of them kept their standard running on the ground animation, just you have a magitek device creating a sort of energy barrier under your mount to run along, a temporary road through the sky. You know, kinda like a Kirby Canvas Course kind of thing.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Like, Fenrir simply couldn't be allowed to fly until they'd given it a fancy trail of ice to run on. That's the sort of attention to detail that's nice. Nowadays we have T-Rex's swimming in midair and even the Nine tails or Clouds motorbike doesn't have a flight animation. Just a small nitpick, but I'd rather see them gradually add flight one by one and make it look good rather than give up and make everything run around in the air.

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Originally Posted by Hezzlocks

On the other hand, some of these mounts it's like they didn't even try. The FF7 bike is a big one to me. The Magitek Armors tuck their legs up and have thrusters, awesome. The Regalia transforms into an airship of a sort, yeah thats something directly from FF15 but still... Meanwhile, the bike just... drives into the air... Surely they could have given it a small transformation? I'd even have accepted having the wheels turn on their sides to become sort of propellers. No change just ruined that bike for me.

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I always wonder why Cloud's bike doesn't just pop out the two sword panels to "fly". It would have looked sort of like wings anyway, haha. Just add sparkles!

I know it's more effort on their part to model, but being a mogstation mount (that I wanted but didn't get once I saw it fly, make scooter noises) this would have been a nice touch, and made it more worth the price imo. No particles or transformations at all was a severe letdown.