I hate aether currents with a passion

[Ashquar]

While I feel similarly, I also feel like the completion of aether currents occurs way too closely to the point in which you move to the next zone.
You really don't get to enjoy it until later on when you're in moogle hell.

Bodes well as I have just started the moogle questline. I have heard some real hatred about those little critters from my FC members

[RubenSnizzle]

Frankly, having to collect the Aether Currents really makes me appreciate being able to fly after! The challenge makes the reward sweeter.

Haha yup! And when you go back to an older area with quest and you have the ability to fly....f*** the running!

[Ransu]

Frankly, having to collect the Aether Currents really makes me appreciate being able to fly after! The challenge makes the reward sweeter.

Rewarded for what? Congrats you no longer have a reason to go back to that zone. The entire design is stupid. I would have preferred something similar to how chocobo license was unlocked.

[Boyzby]

Frankly, having to collect the Aether Currents really makes me appreciate being able to fly after! The challenge makes the reward sweeter.

I didn't find it a challenge at all, just an annoyance. Getting through the irritating layout of the ground, which I had to traverse back and forth many, many times for quests, just makes me frustrated at the design, not appreciate the flying more.

[Madjames]

Frankly, having to collect the Aether Currents really makes me appreciate being able to fly after! The challenge makes the reward sweeter.

Time Consumption does not equal challenge. All I see is a main feature of an expansion gated for no reason other then time consumption.

[Tayolynn]

I actually like the part where you hunt for the aether currents. What I don't like, is the quests that are attached to unlocking the aether currents as well. THAT bugs me like crazy.

I like the looking for currents part because it's like another tool for exploration. And at least they gave a compass that points to the exact direction of the current's location. If they truly be trolling, they'd give us nothing and say, "go find it lulz".

[Ayuhra]

I am actually quite pleased with aether currents. They force you to explore and they force you to progress your quests in an area. When you are done with an area you can then fly there for future quests, hunts, FATEs and (presumably) future content patches.

It may be tedious but it's an elegant enough solution to WoW's problem which has been flight granted at level cap and everyone just flies over everything. Blizzard has always regretted introducing flight because nobody explored anymore. They regretted it so much that they removed it completely in the latest expansion (though apparently they've gone back on that and you can get it ONLY after some thorough exploration achievements and a rep grind). According to Blizzard: “(Flight) completely removes the ability for us to pace or present content in any structured way, and in general removes our ability to determine how and when players approach a situation.”

I can perfectly understand the annoyance at aether currents but for now that's SE's way of managing content. I'm curious as to where they'll go from here and hope they don't eventually regret flight too.

[Luvbunny]

Time Consumption does not equal challenge. All I see is a main feature of an expansion gated for no reason other then time consumption.

This is how this game works, and yes I don't exactly love it... but it is their rule - padding time by making you doing useless activities such as this. FF14 is tame in comparison though, the WORST offender is FFXI. If you hate being gated and forced to run around, then you will absolutely loathe FFXI, where every single thing is "gated" behind "go farm this, oh it's random drop, spend an hour or two". Every single activities is like this.

[lordoftheapes79]

I spam that compass constantly and this only happened once. I really like this system and hope they keep it.

[AskaRay]

Me too. I love this... hopefully in future releases they keep it similar.