I guess it's time

[Thayos]

Now everything feels like it has to be done with a static because nobody interacts anymore. The game is not producing any new skilled players this way (unsyncing aside).

This is another reason why I'm excited about Deep Dungeons, and also another reason why I was so upset by the Diadem's failure.

A big weakness of this game has always been its structured 8-man content, which encourages statics and discourages more casual linkshell and FC groups, which is what people who came from FFXI were accustomed to. Given this game's emphasis on Free Companies, it has always baffled me that the game never had more meaningful content that pick-up groups in FCs could do without needing to form exclusionary statics.

Deep Dungeons should be more accessible by in-game friends who don't have the time to form statics. So should Diadem, if SE can properly fix it. When Diadem first launched, my FC was looking forward to regularly occurring runs for whoever could show up at certain times (with no static strings attached). But the content sucked so bad that everyone immediately lost interest -- it just wasn't fun.

The only people in my FC who kept up with Diadem were the people who were in a savage raiding static, and they only did it for the drops. But they absolutely hated the content.

4. Player interactions were a whole lot better. People were actually willing to teach and take you through instances/primals etc. Why? Because in the end you can get your relic and you would be a good candidate to raid with. What's the difference now? Its either you clear x primal once and pray to god your weapon drops, convince 7 other people to grind the same content with you (slim chance without a static), sit and wait for the relic to come out to get a good weapon, pray to god that a static will take you in with your current gear/weapon, or not raid at all.

Yes, yes, yes! Totally agree. And you do a great job of showing why SE screwed up by tuning this game's endgame too far toward raiding. In a casual/midcore game with a social infrastructure built around Free Companies, it makes no sense to have endgame be focused on eight-man content that's by far more efficient in statics with strict membership requirements. THIS is the game's biggest weakness.

[Zojha]

Deep Dungeons should be more accessible by in-game friends who don't have the time to form statics.

Do consider that Deep Dungeon will only have two save-states and in order to continue a save-state, the group members must be the same as when the save-state was made. Unless deep dungeon can be cleared within one session, it will be mini-static content.