This game is on a terrible state right now.

[Absurdity]

A long side-quest chain? It's only long if you're a new player coming in and have never touched the Hildebrand quests, in which case you're stuck doing two or three, maybe four if you're slow, hours of quests. If you've been around for any length of time, then it is instead a case of do like four quests and dip into your surplus of tomestones to near-instantly acquire a weapon.

I'm honestly baffled every time people bring this up as an argument, usually in combination with "there is so much to do", as if they have no concept of linear time.

You do realize you're playing an almost 10 year old game, right? If you started the game in Shadowbringers of course there is a ton of content for you to do, you have 8+ years of updates to catch up on.

We had a prime example of a hype features where it just resulted in people being discontent because of poor implementation. I mean well, we originally had this with Island Sanctuary prior to its addition alongside Variant/Criterion dungeons but they fail to deliver in the long run. I'm just hoping they seriously do invest into these since otherwise what was the point of it if its just gets quickly abandonned.

Unfortunately the game has a bit of a track record when it comes to abandoning ideas that didn't immediately pay off. Lords of Verminion, Chocobo Racing, Squadrons (no I'm not counting Duty Support since that doesn't have the same functionality), Grand Companies, Diadem was abandoned for the longest time until it just got turned into a gathering grind zone and a few more pieces that are debatable.

The most simple solution:
1. Get rid of third party players who clearly have an advantage over everyone else.
2. Make end game content Duty Finder friendly (for learning or clearing)
3. Get rid of end game content that seemingly "requires" (according to my previous posts) the use of third party tools

Ah yes, the solution to a lack of content is to remove both players and content, 200 IQ move.