XXL chess pawn promotion

This is about chess.com's implementation of what they call XXL chess:

I like it except for one thing. Pawns promote on the 8th rank  which is an undefended area. Each player can push a pawn and get an easy Queen, and the opponent can't do much except get the same number of Queens.

This feels very unnatural for chess variants.

Can we change a setting somewhere to make the pawns promote on a higher rank?

If not, what are the best practices for opening play?

think about the 4pc pawn promotions for a minute

It only starts undefended. But if you play even a handful of games (against anyone who knows they promote on 8th), you'll find that you can't just "make as many Queens as you like".

There is a lot of early game strategy around keeping your opponent from promoting, but it is very different from normal chess only because it is impossible to promote early game.

I tried modifying the rules to promote to a Ferz on the 8th rank and added the torpedo option. I quite liked the result, it completely changes the games. Torpedo allows you to skip the 8th rank and avoid promoting, but there is no option to make pawns able to promote to something more powerful at a higher rank. If that rule could be modified I think it would be a very good variant.