Quote Originally Posted by Magic-Mal View Post
Well.. the first thing I'd do is get rid of flying. Then I'll decide whether or not to make the maps big wastelands, actual filled maps, or smaller more detailed maps like ARR. I saw a thread some time ago asking for climbing. It sounded silly at first but I think FFXIV would be amazing if it had climbing instead of flying. Where you can climb all the rocks and things instead of just flying on it.
As often as I defend WoW's stance on flying (released only via grinds / achievements towards the end of the expansion, i.e. once the advantage is primarily aesthetic or convenient only for insignificant grinding), I don't actually see anything specifically advantageous to removing flight as travel is now. XIV simply does not take good advantage of its terrain. With or without flight, the game needs improvements to its physics of movement. GW2 provides okayish examples of the (mount) movement mechanics available to spice up the open world, but even their physics can leave it a bit more lackluster than travel easily could be. I had hoped to see far more of canyons and the like, useful for ambushes and encouraging stealth and use of the unbeaten path, from the Ala Mhigan peripheries, for instance. Think of those places that make for good boss fight areas in single-player open world combat. This game has none of that, and even if such a zone were to exist here, we'd lack the ability to climb or stealth or leap or whatnot as necessary to take advantage of it.