No flying in 5.0: Would it be better?

[Jojoya]

If you feel the zones are barren, it's because there's no content there that's relevant to you or to other players to bring them there. It's not because of flying. Ask for SE to add more relevant content instead.

Personally I feel the world feels more like a world when places are mostly barren of things other than natural plant and animal life while people and other "thinking creatures" congregate in cities and other activity hubs.

As for skipping over a world and seeing less of it, I see a lot more with flying than I do if I'm flipping around small zones via Aetheryte so the majority of the time I'm looking at loading screens. Flying lets me see all of it instead of just the portions tied to the content I'm doing.

Being grounded while leveling then getting to fly once the MSQ for the zone is complete and the aether currents found is a good compromise. If you don't want to fly once you have it unlocked, then don't. For MMOs to succeed they need to appeal to a wider variety of players, not the small number that prefers to do things one exact way.

[Solarra]

I generally agree here, there'd likely be backlash. Still, the point of the thread, as I understand it, is to speculate whether or not a removal of flying would make the game better, not more popular and/or avoid community backlash...
...Also, please don't willfully mistake my post. I'm not advocating for limited travel options. I'm advocating for attaching a cost to travel options.

So far I haven't seen anyone in this thread give a concrete example of how removing flying would make the game 'better'.
Subjective things like 'immersion' would be affected, but that's different for everyone and not everybody cares about the open world or enjoys that aspect of the game.

Removing flying would necessitate maps being on one level only. That would be worse than what we have now. At present, some areas require flying to get to, taking that away would not be an improvement.
The few overworld activities we do have at endgame would all be made much more difficult, which would probably lead to less people doing them. The idea that the world would be more active without flying is a fallacy.

Adding 'cost' to travel is something the game has already done. We have to find Aetheryte Currents which both encourages and rewards exploration. We have to complete the MSQ on foot and some side quests too. I enjoy those aspects a lot, but once I've finished the story I'm only in the world looking for hunts, fates, dailies or gathering nodes and I don't see any benefit in making those activities harder to get to.

As to making a personal mount more inconvenient or costly so people are pushed towards using a Choco porter or a ferry, I don't see the point. The reason they aren't popular is because they are extremely limited and offer exactly the same experience every time you use them.

[Shurrikhan]

I don't know why good zone design and flying have to seem like two things that cannot co-exist. If the map designers feel like their hard work is wasted, why is that the fault of flying? Eureka looks nice, when you aren't busy dodging mobs when you can't mount yet but that's about it.

And the the maps themselves sometimes have us fighting the terrain to get from A to B... like why?

I was in agreement until that last bit. You can even have interesting terrain and mechanics as would interact with flight specifically/primarily. There's no reason designing with an allowance for flight has to inherently reduce the quality of ground developments or likelihood thereof any more than any other near zero-sum in development paths -- though in this case at least much of the benefits of either are shared.

But, what's wrong with fighting the terrain? If there are ways to actually cut the difference between taking the wide route around and flying over something, that tends to be precisely where and how the terrain gets more interesting.

[Zojha]

[...] and I don't see any benefit in making those activities harder to get to.

Indeed. That's why I say: Remove the open world zones entirely and just port people to those activities directly. It's even faster and more convenient, there is no benefit in making those activities harder to get to by having to move there manually after all and it saves dev effort on the maps. More than that, you no longer compete against others for things like hunts or lag over things like Ixion. To top it off, you don't need to keep those instances running 24/7, if nobody is there, you can save server resources as well. And as you say yourself, not everyone cares about the open world anyway and the only thing affected by going full instances and menus would be subjective things like "immersion".

It would make the game so much better, no? I mean, it's super convenient and comes with all sorts of side benefits for servers, devs and players to boot. And all it does is to take that last bit of inconvenient travel time and inaccessibility flying still retains and throws it out of the window, because there's clearly no value in it. It's the next consequent step - Raids already do it, you just get dumped right in front of a boss. Raging success, might as well dump people right in front of a FATE, quest hub, gathering node or hunt. It's the future of MMOs!

This post contains biting sarcasm

[Solarra]

Indeed. That's why I say: Remove the open world zones entirely and just port people to those activities directly etc.

Very funny (oh look, I can be sarcastic, too, but let's not derail the debate with snark)

All I'm arguing for is leaving things pretty much as they are.
Can you give me one benefit of removing flight (along with all flight-accessible areas on the maps and flight-accessible nodes) and adding extra difficulty to the terrain and ground travel?
What is so terrible about what we have now?

Edit: I do hope the people up-voting your post clicked on your 'spoiler tag'

[BluexBird]

One of the reasons why I loved GW2 so much. You actually had to explore the map, and in each part of it there was something to do.

In this game tho... maps feel empty, lifeless... Unless they change that next expansion, I'm really not looking forward walking through places like Southern Thanalan. Seriously, who the hell thought map design like that would be OK?

[kikix12]

I don't particularly care if flying is removed, but SE needs to attach a real cost to all of the ultra-convenient modes of transportation present in FFXIV.

They don't, really. If you care about the world, you'll watch it. If not, being forced to watch it is just going to irritate people.

Some of the people here, you included, are talking about how flying and other modes of transportation make it so that players don't have the opportunity to appreciate the world that Square made...but that's simply a lie. They in no way do take the opportunity to do that. They are optional. You are not forced to use them. You CHOOSE to use them, so the one that takes those chances away is you, yourself. Removing flying removes an OPTION, while giving NOTHING in return. Just like adding flying in the past GAVE an option while taking NOTHING in return...from players perspective.

You need to realize that if you enjoy something, then it means its enjoyable to you. Not that it's enjoyable universally. I know many people that couldn't care less about the world. When I log on just for a few dailies, I don't care one bit about the world. If I had to spend twice the time to do the same amount of dailies just because some people think I'd appreciate wasting my time seeing the same view for a 1000th time regardless of my choice, then I'd just stop logging in altogether. Something I already do scarcely due to various other reasons.

We're immersed in our real life because... it's our life. We have no choice but to be immersed in it. But immersion in the community (the real-life version of Eorzea) absolutely suffers.

It's not a wrong analogy. You seem to be selective in what you apply "immersion" to. However, it's not. Immersion is, as I said, based on the believability of the world. What breaks immersion is not things you don't care much for, but things that are out of place.
Yes, you won't get immersed much in the community when you just go from point A to point B...but that's an entirely different thing and no amount of inconvenience (as removal of flying is just that) will change that. If a player doesn't want to get involved with the community beyond select few people, they won't. Slowing down their movement will have no effect on that at all.

It's the difference between the feeling you get living in a city and relying on foot and public transit to get around, and the feeling you get in the suburbs where you drive from point to point and interact with nothing along the way. I've lived both existences - it's a night and day change. Street vendors, impromptu music, small little niche stores - or, on the other side of the coin, homeless, crime - none of these are particularly visible even from a car, let alone from a personal jetpack. The impact is stark.

This is a horrible example. There are cities in the game, you can't use flying in them and they are "alive". Limsa Lominsa, Uldah etc. are filled with people. They are this "city life" you talk about. Then there are the areas outside which are effectively the empty roads between towns. There is no life there at all, except for the cars that go from town to town. Once in a while there will be a gas station, a house that often falls apart or the like. Compared to that, the "suburbs" in this game are still very lively. Even if you just fly, you actually see others flying around as well. You see them on the ground doing their quests etc. In real life, it's all just transit. Nothing happens, you see no one, just cars that pass by.

[alimdia]

This has nothing to do with flight, you can't have both detailed maps and big maps, you have to pick one or the other. Maps lack details not because of flight, but because it would probably take them twice as long to design them if they had to put so much detail in the current massive maps, that or we lose entire maps to focus on a lower number of maps. For me, no thanks, not worth the trade-off of slower expansions, smaller maps or fewer maps.

If you want more detailed small zones then ask for them to continue the Diadem/Eureka formula past SB, with no flight and small, detailed maps.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Having played Black Desert, where there is no fast travel whatsoever. I found it quickly becoming tedious just how much time I spent running from city to city. Nothing about it "immersed" me in the world, which was equally barren. It simply became a chore—making me less inclined to revisit locations unless absolutely necessary. I mean, what exactly is immersive about having to constantly run through The Loches or Peeks, both being massive zones? Even Azim Steepe, arguably the prettiest location, would feel needlessly tedious if I had to run across it every time a hunt spawned. Heaven help those who get angry about early pulls, by the way.

If you want to feel immersed, don't use a mount. I prefer the convenience.

[Aylis]

The few overworld activities we do have at endgame would all be made much more difficult, which would probably lead to less people doing them. The idea that the world would be more active without flying is a fallacy.

My personal sentiments agree and is mainly why I want to keep flying. I personally enjoy doing my daily hunts and my weekly B mark. It's a fun little time killer for extra money and seals to convert to ventures. With flying I can usually wrap up one expansions set in about an hour. Telling me I'd now have to spend four hours running around each bloody map to finish a set...I deffo would not enjoy it as much and would most certainly not want to do them anymore.

I'm all for pretty scenery but I can only oooooo and ahhhhh and take so many screenshots for so long before its old and I just want the convenience of getting to where I need to go to do what I need to do fast.