kernbeep
Private
Another thing that the system does is keeping you from having only higher-era friends, as most of your friend requests will likely come from same-era or lower-era players.
Sadly, the current system will probably lead me to stop accepting friend requests from lower age players, as they seem the most prone to going inactive. I already consider requests from low era players very carefully to see if they have started building GBs and if they have upgraded their tavern. I may leave a friend request unanswered for a week until I see if they are regularly clearing their tavern and upgrading it. On the other hand, I am usually able to get higher era players to accept a friend request by contributing to their GBs (if they are in my hood) and by aiding them daily before sending a request.
Perhaps if Inno see people limiting their friends list to 80, they may begin to understand that the current system is flawed.