What do you think about some of these side quests?

[Sephiroth]

I thought the hunts except bigger ones like Malboro, Ayakashi, Adamantaimai, Naglfar, Malbodoom, Sir Tonberry, Zu, Bennu, Jumbo Cactuar, et cetera - so obviously some of the legendary blacksmith included - were extremely boring. I really do not need 100 quests with common monsters.

Yeah I definitely agree with you there. I wish that they had followed the same formula that XIII had with the monster hunts. Each enemy was visually unique and required a strategy in order to earn the full five-stars. It appeared far more like a fantasy game, compared to XV where the monsters are far too "realist." In XV it felt like you were just hunting animals in the wild as opposed to playing in a fantasy world. Some might like that, but I really disagree with Tabata's design philosophy of a "fantasy based on reality." There was hardly any fantasy and far too much reality.

Every Cie'th stone mission in XIII unlocked something new, whether it was a piece of equipment or an accessory. Some people even sought out specific boss encounters like Mission 55 because it gave a growth egg which doubled your CP gains. I really didn't feel like XV did anything to make me want to do monster hunts.

Uh, yeah well. In XIII they were also not visually unique except some like Zenobia or Vercingetorix, et cetera. There were still tons of throw-away enemies. But I mentioned XIII because XIII also tried to give them some meaning. Like XII. Now reduced to the really special ones with some special cutscenes and story and dialogue and we have something cool.