There was a lot of activity since I last checked this thread but all I have to say is that while I appreciate these first few steps in a better direction, there remains the issue with how Endwalker pushes its "forge ahead" message and I did my best to explain why that message wasn't received well by some players. Generally speaking, if you wouldn't try and say a message like that to someone going through something serious in real life, I don't see why it's ok for the game to try and push that message onto people.

The arguing about opinion vs statements isn't something I'm willing to entertain, I speak like how I speak and that's really all there is to it. Going any further on that tangent than that wouldn't be in the best interest of this or any discussion moving forward. I want the game to do well, and I think that pivoting away from both that sort of message and taking a more serious tone in the main story/raid quests will be a good thing. You can get humor anywhere, but Final Fantasy storytelling is what is unique to the game. Sadly, Endwalker's writing doesn't really match up well with the precedent set by previous expansions and other FF games.

By changing up the cast and giving people both a new heroine and male lead with the reaper and Vrtra, this will help make us like our party more and balance out the two scions that are with us at present. At the moment I do not support having 7 other people there for the sake of being able to have a Trust mode for trials, but if other members are to be added I want them to be unique. The scions' arcs are largely over and G'raha Tia already got his adventure with us. It is time to move on. 10 more years of them all again wouldn't be in the game's best interest.

The state in which Island Sanctuary is releasing doesn't really inspire me to take part in the content, though the apparent reward of "Jenomis Hair" is rather curious as it could allude to either an Ivalician or Garlean hairstyle that isn't presently accessible to players. Since Jenomis uses hair from Gold Saucer, it cannot be his own haircut. I only hope that all races are able to use it at launch.