Quote Originally Posted by Shougun View Post
Read and the thoughts dispersed in some posts already but wanted to say myself that I think the system is preferable to just allowing flying from the gate, at least in a general statement. The reason being it makes you have to deal with the obstructions and scale of the zone before you get to cut everything down into tiny packages.
I disagree that the aether currents mechanic makes you deal with the obstructions and scale of the zone, and that they offer a progression step that is important to the game experience. The mechanic doesn't force any appreciation for the zones or game experience, at least definitely not in all users. For many it has the opposite effect. You can appreciate the scale of a zone, arguably even more so, from flight, a feature that the player has already experienced in the linear story progression. Also, the alleged intent of the aether mechanic and restriction of flight serving to force the player to slow down and enjoy the content is directly contradicted and invalidated by the real world money skip option, as if it were truly the devs intent, this option would not be available.

So we're left with the aether currents and restriction of flight being an arbitrary slowdown for the player in an already lengthy, linear main story content. There is no reason to restrict flying with the aether currents mechanic. Zones can easily be blocked off by many other simple solutions. Invisible walls would be one solution even. The game is already chock full of them as it stands, and it doesn't serve to disrupt the player base's immersion.

No one has yet to provide any reasoning as to why the restriction of flight in expansion content is necessary, nor any logical purpose to the aether currents mechanic.