Any talk about them doing away with Aether Currents for flight

[Momo_Kozuki]

I don't mind aether current cuz it encourages exploration. It may be tedious if you play more than one character, though.

My suggestion is keeping the same system, but adding Riding Map 1-2 star as a reward for collecting 5-10 Aether Currents.

-This will make Riding Maps something more helpful before you unlock flying than just an afterthought currency spending.
-It will also make travelling for questing faster for people who spend time exploring the map.
-Why dividing it into two-part rewards? Because some regions may have two different areas that are locked until you access them via MSQ or hitch a ride. This way, you will benefit from the speed boost even if you only access half of the region when you first come across of it.

[Jojoya]

I don't mind aether current cuz it encourages exploration. It may be tedious if you play more than one character, though.

My suggestion is keeping the same system, but adding Riding Map 1-2 star as a reward for collecting 5-10 Aether Currents.

-This will make Riding Maps something more helpful before you unlock flying than just an afterthought currency spending.
-It will also make travelling for questing faster for people who spend time exploring the map.
-Why dividing it into two-part rewards? Because some regions may have two different areas that are locked until you access them via MSQ or hitch a ride. This way, you will benefit from the speed boost even if you only access half of the region when you first come across of it.

You were able to get the Riding Maps in Lakeland, Il Mheg and Tempest before you were able to earn flying in those zones, which was nice if you wanted to work on additional content in the zone before completing the MSQ. If I remember correctly, you originally did have to get Rank 1 of Shared FATEs completed for the zone before the map appeared on the vendor but the gemstones you earned doing those FATE then paid for the map. Later they took away the Rank 1 requirement so you could buy them as soon as you unlocked the vendor.

I don't know why they locked the gemstone traders in the second half of Amh Araeng, Kholusia and Rak'tika though. There were still side quests, FATEs and hunt bills to be done so the player would benefit from the increased speed. By blocking access behind the second half the zone, players were better off skipping the additional content and rushing through MSQ to get the flying unlock, at which point the riding maps become pointless.

It might have made sense to leave access to the riding maps blocked until after MSQ completion for ARR (or I guess it was really just getting 2nd Lt with the GC so the Hunt could be unlocked) as a sort of reward for progression but now that flying has become the reward, access to the riding maps should be unlocked earlier.

[Iscah]

I think the real answer here is that the dev team doesn't care about User Experience as long as they can turn their failures into plot points.

The vast majority of the story of Shadowbringers was driven by the lack of flying mounts prior to story completion. The Mt. Gulg / Talos Repair and construction arc, the second half of Amh Araeng, early Il Mheg, almost the entirety of the Amaurot arc, and most of Rak'Tika. Lakeland was the only zone that didn't have some plot point driven by you being unable to fly without Eulmoran airships / Amaros.

I don't think the plot is ever built around the idea that we can't fly until we obtain aether currents, or that we have the flying mounts to utilise them.

The Talos plan at Mt Gulg was conceived because a direct air assault would be impossible due to the army of sin eaters.

We couldn't fly in Ahm Araeng because the Eulmorans would shoot us down if we tried. And taking a personal mount wasn't even a suggested option.

I don't recall any reason for us to fly in Il Mheg or Rak'tika either. Il Mheg is fully accessible on foot and getting into the deep woods wasn't an issue of physical access but of not being shot on sight by the Viis.

And the Tempest... well, again I don't think mounts are considered to exist by the story writers, but if they wanted to make a plot point of our inability to fly then then they would have talked about it. And if we could fly, they'd have structured the zone differently to keep us out some other way.