I'm currently playing Lost Ark after being in the same boat for a little while. (isometric mmo) All these "lite mmos" or live service games just don't hold a candle to the real thing. I played Age of Conan + expansion for five years before quitting since it was clear that the game was dying (left after they nerfed everything to the ground basically in terms of difficulty) but man the outrageous amount of content, the basically unmatched dungeons and the best melee combat I've ever played in any game which made pvp the best experience I've ever had in a mmo were more than enough on their, plus the raids were nuts as well
It did help that the progression system in there was designed to last for basically more than one year
At the moment Lost Ark is like a really well thought out game, with tons of variety, raids, open world and arena pvp and some meaningful grind on top of it. It just works for me. Also its basically completely free with a premium sub if you wish to go down that road, and some pay 2 play more elements, rather than win. You don't need to spend anything to keep up, your talent will do the rest. You got directions as to what to do, higher tier raids are ilvl capped so you know what to grind in order to unlock them and there's enough side content not tied to your character specifically to keep things really interesting
But yeah basically its the only good mmo / live service game I've played since FF XIV, not counting Black Desert as a pvp experience first and foremost
