Post Dawntrail Vibes – Future expansion ideas?

[PaleYonder]

If I was to still want anything and to give this another chance for 8.0...
I would want a much darker tone, a return to politics or philosophy that deserve their name and not as background premises, with an adult audience in mind. (Aka less kingmaking with contests, more the politics of ARR and HW, but something new.)

Characters that have their own stances and motives and emotional landscapes and act upon those, not upon themes or what the standard plot would need. Yes, especially if that will break the formula and make it so the scheduled fight at level whatever doesn't happen and they need to get creative and find something else. Actually put the character writing first. I want people being themselves to have natural consequences. We're grown-up. I don't want to be told "This way of thinking is good/bad and people who disagree are wrong and then bad things happen."
Let someone have a debate and fundamentally disagree on issues, but also don't like, force conflict if it wouldn't actually happen just because it looked good in marketing or because "we always have this-and-that at this level".
And if we take the Scions, remember who each of them is and why people liked each one in the first place. Bring that out again, yes even if it clashes with "the theme".

For a setting - for my part, no more real-world map filling please. I actually like the shards; I'd love to see a new truly otherworldly place. Pick an elemental imbalance again and world build around that from scratch in every way. The nature, the way cities are built, the problems, the societies, the mentality - like the First had Light and so their societies involved stasis and calcification, with Eulmore as the poster child, and the Void has Dark and it's so dynamic it extends to identity and has them cannibalise each other and blur. (I loved those glimpses in first Void visit before the story focus shifted.)
I'd want something actually fantastical and different and creative. No trying to be our world nor trying to be an older FF setting. Something new that we don't recognise but that makes inherent sense with how it's built up.

[Regis_Paran]

I honestly don't care where we go.

As long as they can create interesting story and good characters I can care about, it can be whatever.
That creation part is currently in question.

[Sunhwapark]

I hope we get taken away to another shard again, preferably without 90% of the scions in our pocket.