Suggestion [remove Aether Currents as a catch up mechanic]

[Jojoya]

As title suggests, the aether currents where added with heavensward as a way to slow down the player to force them to quest at slower pace to allow SE to make more content. This is fine while the content is new, but the moment the expansion ends it is simply a barrier to entry.

Say what? This is crazed conspiracy theory nonsense. They aren't there to slow you down. They're there as part of world building.

As long as you're picking up aether currents as you do the MSQ, it's not adding significant amounts of time (The Lochs would be an exception - the aether current placement is terrible compared to what little MSQ takes place there). It adds maybe 2 hours to the amount of time needed to complete an expansion's main MSQ. Let's say I pad that to 10 hours for all expansions combined - that's still only a 5 % increase to the amount of time it takes to complete the MSQ to 5.55.

As a new payer to FF14, with nearly 45K hours in video games [50% of that is in MMOs], I have rarely seen a game that implements such a mechanic as to purposefully CRIPPLE the player. ARR is already a long and boring slog. Few players already survive the horrible ARR, Even I, a player of WoW who is used to rep grinding found ARR and currents tedious to where I almost quit.

- You are at a moment where many WoW players are moving to your game, you should Capitalize on this momentum by increasing accessibility not decreasing it.

How ironic you bring up WoW when Pathfinder was far more intrusive and crippling to players than the Aether Current system is. Pathfinder was one of the bigger reasons I quit WoW.

I've got zero problem with the Aether Current system here because for the most part it's well planned out to flow with MSQ progression (again, The Lochs is a big exception).

There is no Aether Current system in ARR. Why are you implying it's part of what made ARR so tedious to you?

Sorry, I just can't agree with you that it is a problem. But if it makes you feel better, YoshiP already announced they're going to review the Aether Current system after Endwalker launches to see if improvements can be made to it in some of the older zones (again, hopefully The Lochs).