1. Collect aether currents - Be Happy that it's not like WoWs flight, do you want to get every beast tribe to max just to have p1 unlocked.
2. Do enough fates to get increased mount speed. - I found that I did this completely passive and after 30 mins had it unlocked and the gems to buy it, even before coming across the vendor
3. Do quests for the locals to get upgraded gear and aether currents - core element to most games do quest get gear.
4. Deal with the end boss eventually - like every other game in this gen that's ever been made.

How you have changed each zone so they didn't have any of these aspects?