Any talk about them doing away with Aether Currents for flight

[DBriggs304]

They are usually in areas we are going to anyway so nah...keep them. It's hardly any time or work involved.

[ForteNightshade]

Going to have to disagree on the importance and relevance of the Role Quests. True I don't care too much about the contacts and their tales. But I do care about Ardberts companions.. we fought them in post-HW, before they returned home with Minfilia to stop the Flood of Light, and now we get to see both what happened before in their lives and what became of them after their clash with us in HW.

I meant important in the sense you're forced to complete one of them. It isn't the story I have any issue with. In fact, I quite like them for the reasons you said. I'd just prefer to enjoy them at my leisure and not abruptly have to stop near the very end of the MSQ to partake in them. When I'm invested in the MSQ, I want to continue forward. And the person I quoted claimed they were important to the MSQ but they can't be since you aren't forced to complete all four. Just one.

They enrich the MSQ but that doesn't mean they need to be required.

[StriderShinryu]

Personally, I'd rather they made all of the flight requirements for an area into aether currents. Even if they put them blocked in areas you have to complete a quest to access, it always felt really artificial to me to have them quest locked. It's like "Hey, you helped Bob fix his chocobo-cart.. bam, you have attuned to an aether current!" Like, what, is the aether current coming out of the chocobo's rear end?

[Equitable_Remedy]

Going to be honest—I'm pretty fine with the aether current system.

I guess that I'm supposed to be mad at it, but I'm not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Starshower]

It would be lovely if when you do the last quest of the zone (the one that gives the last quest aether current), it enabled flying in that zone without needing to hunt down aether currents. I know people that still can't fly in some zones, even though they are in the end game, just because they are lazy and can't bother. It drives me crazy!

[linayar]

Personally, I'd rather they made all of the flight requirements for an area into aether currents. Even if they put them blocked in areas you have to complete a quest to access, it always felt really artificial to me to have them quest locked. It's like "Hey, you helped Bob fix his chocobo-cart.. bam, you have attuned to an aether current!" Like, what, is the aether current coming out of the chocobo's rear end?

For gameplay reasons, they chose specific quests as the medium. I just think of it as doing an activity in that zone is an alternative way to going to a specific place in that zone for attunement. It's just so convenient that the MSQ is a worthy activity for part of that attunement.

[Arkdra]

I enjoy the aether currents, even the hilariously sadistic ones in lochs. If they made a daily out of doing them that forbade flight, I'd do it frequently just for my own amusement.

[lolicon09]

Getting those things is easy AF anyway so i hope they never get removed

[Arkevorkhat]

Honestly, I agree with OP, it's always a nasty shock when I come back to an area, especially on my alt, and discover that I didn't do the unnecessary chore of grabbing all the aether currents, and so now I can't fly.
I feel like they only exist because MMO players have this inexplicable mindset that enjoyable content, be that flight in a zone, or completion of a weapon, or access to a new dungeon, must be locked behind doing something inherently non-enjoyable, like grinding the same dungeon 15 times *cough cough* or running around a zone for an hour trying to find little green fart-clouds that have been intentionally placed in difficult but not enjoyable places to access, looking at you, the lochs.

I feel the problem with aether currents is that people who love exploration will explore with or without locking flying behind the currents; people who don't enjoy exploration simply feel like they're being forced to waste time.

The other thing is that, especially for people who joined the game with 5.3, the Aether current system doesn't feel like a reward for doing something, it feels like an obstacle between you and something that you've had in ARR zones ever since you completed ARR's MSQ; it feels more like you're being punished for continuing the story by having flight taken away than it does that you're being given flight for completing something.

[Equitable_Remedy]

Honestly, I agree with OP, it's always a nasty shock when I come back to an area, especially on my alt, and discover that I didn't do the unnecessary chore of grabbing all the aether currents, and so now I can't fly.

I can't quite relate to this. I started playing last year, and I just got the aether currents in each zone as I leveled through them—I'm not sure why I would have done otherwise considering the minimal time it takes and the fact that I routinely do any blue quests that I see.