For being advertised as so overly community-friendly, the game is anything but this. I won’t go into kingdom-related grievances anymore, that’s done from my side. And the screenshot shown is the best proof that the system is broken at this point and has probably been ignored for weeks/months.
But as described in the topic, the friends function is absolutely worthless except for the fact that you can explicitly invite them for coops; beyond that there are no advantages at all, neither for players nor for the accepted ones:
No online function
No PM/separate chat window option
No trading possibility
No profiting by (invisible) selection like with minions → percentage of resource loot gained (this would especially benefit new players who have just discovered the game for themselves)
On the last point, I’m sorry to say wisely that many newbies aren’t accepted as friends in the first place because there is NO benefit for either side. However, it’s not obvious at first glance to anyone who asks, and I can imagine that something like this can often lead to personal misunderstandings.
With my personal experience, I can definitely expect service to the (hopefully wanted) community from a so-called live service game.