Quote Originally Posted by Emberhorn View Post
I'm just curious why flying is unlocked per zone and not just a reward for being high level.
This is because it is a story-driven game. They want you to go through the area and have the "on foot" experience, going through all of the story events without being spoiled by previewing them from the air.

Once you unlock flying, it's not the same. Every area is kinda the same once you can fly in it. You usually don't hardly focus on what's below while flying. So flying really does kinda ruin it a lot. You only get that walking experience once so best to make the most of it to appreciate the area, because once you can fly, why wouldn't you fly?

If you could bypass the story restriction on it by just simply leveling up, it would defeat some of the point of it.
Why would I even fly in a zone I'm not going to visit ever again?
Side content (such as sidequests) or endgame content. Of course, this will mostly be what "used" to be endgame content when that area was new. This could include FATE farming for relic weapons, fighting hunts and spawning S ranks, treasure maps, gathering, beast tribe quests, custom deliveries and numerous sidequests. There are also cases where the Main Scenario Quests might eventually return there briefly, even if it's years later.

If you don't intend to do any of the side stuff, then flying is mostly for the people who do.
I would much rather like a quest that made you fly across the new map to unlock it (so you have a good view of the whole map before unlocking it)
Well there are different ways to do it. This game's "lore reason" for flying is that you attune to aether currents. It's pretty common for games to want to "explain everything" and this is one of those games.

If you want to fly before you are able to, you can use this game's "taxi system" which usually involves a chocobo taking you somewhere. In the expansions this involves them flying and sometimes it is not a chocobo, depending on the region's lore.
So after saying that, flying seems like an add on. Why is it here in the 1st place if we are not going to actually make it useful?
Quite frankly, they added it to compete with WoW. It was added with the release of Heavensward, the expansion that features Ishgard.