How common is return and teleport amongst the general populace?

While obviously the user has to attune first, it does seem these spells are that common, these two spells are supposedly extremely simple ones and aetherytes are such a critical part of infrastructure the syndicate got them all rebuilt out of their own pockets.

Yet teleport is explicitly stated to be a bit taxing to most people but the WOL has a few excuses to being able to teleport willy-nilly and we definately see other npcs use it from time to time. or hear about it offscreen such as the case with doman soldiers pre ghimlyt dark

So...which is it?

Whichever the writers feel like it being. There's no hard and fast rules depending on what they want to write. Like the boat ride to the Far East taking months, but Y'shtola going on over there by boat at the end of 4.3, and then coming back by teleport with no discernible strain in 4.4/4.5 or whatever.

There's an official answer for this:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...An-aether-what

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Why doesn't everyone use aetherytes?
To traverse the Lifestream safely with Teleport and Return requires a great deal of spiritual energy, known as anima. While many individuals, such as adventurers, possess the fortitude to endure such travel, some individuals do not. What’s more, even if one has the ability to use aetherytes, the frequency with which one can do so varies. In essence, for some, the recast time for these spells can be far longer than for an adventurer.

As a result, only a fraction of the populace can utilize aetherial travel habitually, which is why chocobos, airships, and other forms of transportation still play a major role in Eorzea.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

...Y'shtola going on over there by boat at the end of 4.3, and then coming back by teleport with no discernible strain in 4.4/4.5 or whatever.

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That makes sense though - if you need to attune to an aetheryte before teleporting to it, then of course you're going to have to physically travel to a new destination, but you can freely teleport back home at any time.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

That makes sense though - if you need to attune to an aetheryte before teleporting to it, then of course you're going to have to physically travel to a new destination, but you can freely teleport back home at any time.

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Derp, wasn't thinking when I was responding. Just the most recent memory of the ship travel jumped to mind, not the reason why. Whoops. Still, the entirety of the Scion cast that went East in 4.0 went back by boat, despite everyone theoretically being capable of teleportation. It's very much a whim of the writer thing.

It comes across as reasonably common to be able to do it, but most people don't seem to have a lot of reserves.

I think of it like a fuel tank. Most people have a couple gallons of TP juice in them, which would get them say 50-60 miles.
Enough to get to nearby towns, and with rests in-between to replenish your tank you can probably hop along the network to other cities saving yourself a bit of travel time and a lot of danger.

It's probably not feasible for most people to use it to travel around the planet, but as a commoner needing to head into the city for something, it'd be incredibly useful.

Also remember that Return is easier than Teleport because you just let yourself be carried in the direction your soul wants to travel (drawn to your home point) rather than fighting the current to reach another chosen destination.

Teleportation is also limited to yourself and whatever you're carrying. That's great for an adventurer with a pack full of supplies but mostly useless to a merchant caravan with lots of people and carts full of wares.

Most people don't have the anima to hop around aimlessly like our character has, given the reality we learned about our character, it's not all that surprising. However I image for most people there is a several hours if not days long delay time between they're ability to use them.

Yeah, the WoL seems to be running around with the equivalent of a couple of space shuttle booster rockets worth of anima, compared to most people working with maybe a fiat puntos worth of petrol at best.

We do know Rowena set up a mini aetherite between Idyllshire and Revenant's Toll.

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Originally Posted by KylePearlsand

We do know Rowena set up a mini aetherite between Idyllshire and Revenant's Toll.

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And uses it frequently!


Rowena is Venat! Mowen's resemblance is purely a red herring.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

And uses it frequently!


Rowena is Venat! Mowen's resemblance is purely a red herring.

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It all makes sense now!!! Zodiark was cutting into to her profits so she decided it was time to "cut" him out of the picture and into multiple pieces while we're at it.

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Originally Posted by Draginhikari

Most people don't have the anima to hop around aimlessly like our character has, given the reality we learned about our character, it's not all that surprising. However I image for most people there is a several hours if not days long delay time between they're ability to use them.

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When you think about it, the Warrior of Light's capacity to traverse the rift and/or lifestream (i.e teleport) has always been just shy of the Ascians' as the WoL's anima appears to be night inexhaustible. Though unlike them, our destinations are limited as we do need an attuned aetheryte beacon to home in on, (meaning we can't go anywhere we haven't been) the use of which typically incurs a toll from whoever built them (hence why teleportation costs Gil)

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

Derp, wasn't thinking when I was responding. Just the most recent memory of the ship travel jumped to mind, not the reason why. Whoops. Still, the entirety of the Scion cast that went East in 4.0 went back by boat, despite everyone theoretically being capable of teleportation. It's very much a whim of the writer thing.

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i don't recall if Thancred went with, but i know that he's canonically incapable of using either spell (or anything else that requires aether manipulation) since the whole incident with Flow.

An important view on this answer is the behavior of teleport before 2.0.

If we could drag in somebody who actually remembers USING the anima bar, that would be helpful.

But I suspect that the average person, that bar still exists, and fills perhaps even slower then in 1.0.

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Originally Posted by Kirisu

When you think about it, the Warrior of Light's capacity to traverse the rift and/or lifestream (i.e teleport) has always been just shy of the Ascians' as the WoL's anima appears to be night inexhaustible. Though unlike them, our destinations are limited as we do need an attuned aetheryte beacon to home in on, (meaning we can't go anywhere we haven't been) the use of which typically incurs a toll from whoever built them (hence why teleportation costs Gil)

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It makes me wonder a bit about the difference in Ascian Teleportation. I would assume it has to do with their ability to move in and out of the rift or simply that being awakened as an Ascian gives one more control over their aetherical properties which allows them to do, given they don't even need physical bodies while in the rift itself. It seems like as long as they are on the same shard, they can still drag their vessel around with them. It's only when going to another shard where they seem to need to abandon their form as Emet stated during ShB where he had to get a new body and shape it to his desired appearance.

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Originally Posted by ICountFrom0

An important view on this answer is the behavior of teleport before 2.0.

If we could drag in somebody who actually remembers USING the anima bar, that would be helpful.

But I suspect that the average person, that bar still exists, and fills perhaps even slower then in 1.0.

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Well... you have such a somebody right here. Anima was a fairly limited resource, making teleportation much less commonplace than in today's gameplay.
You'd have a cap of 100 Anima total.
You'd regenerate 1 point of Anima every few hours.
Teleporting to an Aetheryte within your present region would cost 4 anima, and teleporting to neighbouring or more distant regions would cost 6 Anima.
You had in short... maybe ten teleports a day depending on the desired destination. Needless to say, the addition of Chocobo whistles was a godsend back in the day.

EDIT: Based on these numbers... the thought of teleportation from an altogether different continent rather boggles the mind, so it's not that surprising the Scions opted for the scenic route instead of incurring that kind of exhaustion.

You could take this a step further if you wanted and assume that 100 anima a day is the average for an adventurer. If I remember correctly Koji posted at one point that anima had both a physical and spiritual component. Since an adventurer would be both A) highly athletic and B) trained in using aether/magic to some degree their anima would be greater than the average person.