Is the game not meant to be social?

[Niwashi]

I can see a reason for needing some association with another player before being able to send them mail. After all, I don't really want my inbox full of RMT spam. But having your Friends list be the only association to count for that is overly restrictive. Let us send mail to Friends, FC-mates, and alts.

Also, I see no valid reason why we can't send a Friend request to a player while they're offline, or reply to one while the sender is offline. (The same goes for the Blacklist, where the rule actually helps RMT spammers who follow a pattern of rapid connect, spam, and disconnect before you can blacklist them, though fewer of them seem to have been doing that lately.)

[FunkYeahDragons]

Some of the features are a little frustrating. Many FC groups will use third-party programs like Discord that allow offline messaging, voice chat, and other things the game itself doesn't support.