Head Admin Q&A

[cntrstrk14]

This is a simple "ask why anything is the way it is" thread. This is a bit different from the regular Q&A because for each question I will try and give some insight into the thought process and history behind the subject asked. This is mostly for fun and if you really want to get a look at the history of NA, feel free to ask anything you want here and I will either answer to the best of my knowledge or dig it up for you!

[ZeroFate]

So, why exactly are pets limited to pet clans? I can imagine anybody training an animal so long as they put the time in. Why not just make a general skill that allows pet training? 

[PandaMattMatt]

So I know that techniques and skills require 2 approvals. This is to make sure that multiple eyes check over the creation and make sure nothing was missed. It makes sense, it's perfect, and I like it. However, I have always wondered why some things require 3 or more approvals.

 

Like Summons, Weapons, Custom Paths and Climate/Terrain require 3, but Status effects require 4

[cntrstrk14]

Q: Why are pets clan only?

A: The answer to this is a balancing one, and not one of logic. You are correct, logically anyone could train and own an animal to battle with. The problem is that having a pet functions as having a small second character that follows you around at all times. This is quite powerful. In order to make sure that this is kept in check we cut pet users off from the most powerful abilities in the game- clan abilities & bloodlines. With the advent of the advanced systems rules that have come out in the last year we may be able to revisit this to make sure that pets do not stack with advanced systems rather than all clans outright, but I don't feel that we will; and that is because...

The secondary reason is that we want any player who picks up a pet to really have it as a focus of their character. This is the same way that we make a player commit a lot of SP and JP towards using a puppet. Pets (like puppets) are very powerful and we don't want just every character picking up a pet on the side- if you have a pet it should be a central focus of your character. So in order to have a pet you need to commit one of the largest choices of character creation towards it- choosing a clan. It would feel weird if anyone could just pick up a pet, like if Alchem Syaoran just all of a sudden had a pet ocelot. Alchemy + Pet seems a bit much, especially if he didn't have to commit much to that choice and just picked it up on a whim.


Q: Why do some things require 2 approvals while others require 3+?

A: First, let's take a look at the full list of approval requirements as of the asking of this question...
 

Characters Creation: Needs 2 Approvals
Summon Families: Needs 0 Approvals
Summon Creation: Needs 3 Approvals
Clan Creation: Needs 2 Approvals
Bloodline Creation: Needs 2 Approvals
Technique Creation: Needs 2 Approvals
Status Effects: Need 4 Approvals, One must be an admin
Terrain/Climate Creation: Needs 3 Approvals, One must be an admin
Item Creation: Needs 3 Approvals
Skill Creation: Needs 2 Approvals
Custom Path Creation: Needs 3 Approvals, One must be an admin
Organization Creation: Needs 2 Approvals
Market: Needs 1 Approval
Vault: Need 1 Approval, must be cntrstrk14.

 

This question is actually very good because the answer has a lot of history and reasoning behind it. At first glance a new member may go "well that's pretty random" and to their credit, it does look rather arbitrary. So before I go through each one, let's go over a few things that apply to all of the approvals.

The first thing to know is that these requirements have been increased and reduced over the history of NA. In NA versions 1.0 to 3.0 there was actually no "official" method of custom creations. All of the jutsu and creations were listed in pinned threads for users to take. A user could suggest a new technique, and if the staff liked it it would go in the thread, but that was it. There was no submission + approval process. This seems strange, because the creation of your own content is what NA is all about, otherwise we would just play regular games. But the early versions of NA were still trying to find their feet and we weren't sure what we were exactly aside a Naruto Role Play site.

In NA 4.0 we had our first official creation rules, and (if I remember correctly) all creations needed 3 approvals. And this is how it stayed for a long time. As active staff grew and shrunk over time we found that the quality of our staff members was actually increasing- each individual staff member who could approve things was actually pretty trustworthy with their jobs (early staff members use to rubber stamp things of their friends or not even really read or think about a creation before just saying "approved"; See "Ironwolf"). So one day the staff brought up the slowness of approvals and the lack of active staff for many things. When there are only 6 or so active staff members, its hard to get 3/6 to look at every creation. Half the active staff has to look at everything posted, and that's not even taking into consideration if a staff member won't approve (because they don't believe in the creation or some part of it) or can't approve it (because they have special interest [its a clan they are in or a creation the own] or its their own creation). I believe the thing that first caught our eye was a staff member was reposting a clan where one or two active staff members were a part of. This meant that there were 2-3 staff members of the 6 active that could NOT approve the creation. That was just insane. (Example: If KC reposts the Nankan clan, it is frowned upon for me [as a Nankan clan member] to give the bloodline an approval. This is a conflict of interest.)

Anyways, so this is what lead to the reduction from 3->2 approvals for many of our creations. The ones that did not move from 3->2 are because they are less frequently posted (there is a lesser volume of them) and/or they are much more difficult to price and balance. Let me just run through each one really quickly...

Characters (2): Getting a character approved is THE MOST important creation approval process and needs to be done in a timely manner. This is the bottleneck that keeps a person from playing the game at all so it is really key that we get these approved ASAP. They are not very easy to approve, but most staff members have seen these and have characters themselves so it is a pretty universal knowledge base.
Summon Families (0): These are just for record keeping, there is no "new" content in these so they don't need approvals.
Summons (3): These are posted infrequently and there is some leniency to the rules, so we want the full 3 staff members to get their eyes on these. Some of the rules like the weapons they are allowed to have and elements is up in the air and doesn't have hard rules, making it a bit more difficult.
Clans (2): This is mostly what I call "fluff", meaning that clan sheets never have any mechanical pieces in them and are really just checked over to make sure they fit the village history and don't step on the toes of other clans.
Bloodlines (2): Bloodlines are sometimes the most powerful abilities in the game, but in the end they are just skills. All staff members have long experience approving and making skills so this was moved down to two approvals to keep things running.
Techniques (2): Same as skills and bloodlines, this is the meat and potatoes of the approval process and the most posted of any type of creation. Moved down to two approvals to keep things moving.
Status Effects (4): Now this one is interesting. Status Effects are a pain in the ass to get approved by design. We do not want an overflowing of status effects because we want there to be a defined amount to pick from and use. In addition, this requires an admin approval because these will be placed on the main site for anyone to use. It is very VERY rare for a status effect to be "private" and only allowed to the creator. In fact, as of this posting, there are zero cases of this (Azure just posted one for the Hisame, but it has not been approved yet). Anything that is going on the main site needs to be heavily balanced and needs lots of input.
Terrain/Climate (3): Same as the Status Effects mostly- These are actually a bit easier to balance but since they are going on the main site they need 3 eyes and one of them has to be an admin. There is a pattern here... Main Site = Admin approval.
Item Creation (3): Money -> Power is a very tricky equation to break. Items in general are actually very difficult to balance because not only is it hard to determine how much power a player should be able to buy, but there is often a exponential value that "soft caps" how good items can be. For instance, let's look at a main site item that was recently discussed between staff.

Ninjutsu Amplifier:
Rank 1: ($150) All ninjutsu cost 5 less chakra and do 10 more damage/effect.
Rank 2: ($450) All ninjutsu cost 10 less chakra and do 20 more damage/effect.
Rank 3: ($1350) All ninjutsu cost 20 less chakra and do 40 more damage/effect.

The increase in cost is not linear with the ability, that is clear. This is by design. It is reasonably priced for the first rank, somewhat okay for the second rank, and most would agree way too much for the third rank. That is because as a staff we don't actually WANT an item that reduces costs by 40 and increases damage by 80. There is no rule written for the public about this, but any item that does not give +stats and therefore falls outside the +10% total stats cap rule is difficult to balance. Money is an infinite resource, meaning there is no cap on how much you can get each level like SP or base stats. That means that the power it can buy into has to have limits to them and money -> power is almost never linear. TL;DR - Pricing items is fucking hard.
Skills (2): We've kind of been over this, but skills and techniques are the meat and potatoes and needs to be streamlined.
Custom Paths (3): Again, admin approval needed because paths go on the main site. These are basically class choices, which means they need to be available to everyone. Imagine if you were playing World of Warcraft and someone came up as a class that only they could play with abilities only they get and killed you. Not very fun, right?
Organizations (2): More fluff (mostly), 2 approvals.
Market (1): This is mostly clerical. Someone just needs to make sure that A.) The item you are buying is approved and the math you are doing is correct. or B.) You are buying the item for what is listed on the main site.
Vault (1): I keep track of this, so I need to approve it- simple.

Hopefully this helped explain the approval requirements. There is a lot that goes into each one, probably more than I explained, but these are the major reasons.

[ZeroFate]

Why do summons gain phases/turns the way they do? As it is, you can just give them barely enough speed to be above 1/2 of your own and then dump all the rest of their stats into offense and defense or tanks. If they have a speed stat, why not just calculate their speed with a speed percentile like normal characters?  (I can understand not doing that for clones because it's a hassle to calculate speeds for 10 people all of a sudden, but you can only have one summon at a time, so. . .)

 

Why do Boss Summons only get 15 SP? I know they're supposed to be less powerful than PCs, but that still seems kinda low. Or why not allow them Hindering Skills (Gamatatsu certainly seemed pretty hindered in the manga)?

 

Why not let Summons use Advanced Systems? Yes it does make them more powerful in the short term, but they would burn out quickly by using them, so it still seems balanced to me. 

 

Why are clones always hit if the original is missed? I understand that they're slower/less intelligent, but I'd think they would still have some sense of self preservation. Even if it's a balancing issue, with mere fractions of the original's stats, they wouldn't be hard to hit anyway if directly targeted, and most only have 1 HP. 

[cntrstrk14]

Q: Why do summons have special speed rules?

A: This is a complexity issue with the system. You basically hit the nail on the head with the clone example. The problem is that a lot of people have trouble calculating their own speed, having them calculate a second speed is just a bit too much to ask for. Though with the change to the speed rules we recently did that simplified the math we could probably look at this again, it is still a question of complexity. Players, especially at higher levels, have to juggler a bag of skills, techniques, bloodlines, speeds and items- and since this is essentially a pen and paper game we like to throw a bone whenever we can to keep complexity down. Does this sometimes hinder gameplay? Yes. But that is a call that we have to make from time to time, because a game that is slightly watered down is better than a game that 95% of people cannot keep up with because of complexity issues.

 

This leads into a big thing that I champion a lot in staff, which is the difference between a tabletop game and a video game. Video games have a computer which can do complex calculations outside of the player's eyes that help to give the game a very highly balancing feeling but in a very simplistic wrapper. When you are playing a tabletop game the player IS the computer, and they have to see every piece of math that goes on in the game. One of my favorite examples of this in a video game is the Pokemon catch rate (especially generation 3 and 4). Complex math like that makes for a better game, but it would never work in a tabletop game like NA. At least not until we all get those cybernetic mathematical implants.

 

 

Q: Why do Boss Summons only get 15 SP?

A: Summons started out in their first incarnation as basically just second characters. Have you ever tried making a level 80 character from scratch? Sit down and try and come up with 40 SP and 300 JP worth of content for a single character, and then realize that you had 5 more characters to also stat out. There was a reason there were not many summons created in the original version of summons. Over time we have slowly hacked away at summons, making them simpler because the same problem always came up; they are just too damn time consuming to create for the average member. That is why the JP and SP available to a summon are so low at this point in NA history.

 

For skills especially, having only 15 SP really makes you focus on what you want to have your summon get. If you watch a level 120 vs level 120 stat battle, you will understand what I mean. There are a lot of skills linked that will do a dozen small bonuses, and keeping track of all of this content is mind numbing to say the least. The only saving grace is that each player has had 120 level to get to know their character so they are familiar with what should and should not be going on. If we add the complexity of a second character that you infrequently use who also has just as many nonsense skills, it would be a mad house of complexity. 

 

Even at 15 SP, that means that the most complexity you could have is 15 separate -1 skills that all do different things. That could get crazy, every post could have 3-4 new skills being linked to keep track of. Sure, if you take like 10 ranks of warrior and two other skills its easy to track, but that's the other end of the scale.

 

TL;DR - History has shown us that players prefer easier to create summons that get power from raw stats than summons who are hard to create but have power from skill + technique utility.

 

 

Q: Why are Summons not allowed to use Advanced Systems?

A: Complexity yet again (this is a theme with summons, clones and pets). Advanced Systems, aside being powerful, are often very complex with lots of different rules for different situations. We want to keep complexity on the side of the player where summons are vanilla style characters that can be powerful, but don't have the "spice" that characters have. When we set these kinds of rules for summons we ask ourselves first "How much more complex does this make it?" and then we ask "Does this NEED to have access to it?". The answer for advanced system is "Moderately" and "No". Like I explained in the last answer, complexity creep is a very real thing in a table top game and we need to fight it on every front that we can. If there is a situation where we can make the rules easier for a player then we want to cut on the side of simplicity so long as it maintains nearly the same amount of fun. 

 

On the note of summon creation, not allowing advanced systems for summons really keeps complexity of choices when creating summons to a minimum. One of the largest (and hardest) choices when creating a character is choosing a clan or bloodline, and that is because it is choosing which Advanced Systems your character will have access too. Even most characters who do not choose a clan do so because they plan to use an Advanced System like the gates that do not require a clan, so the choice is still revolving around this choice about an Advanced System. Removing this choice makes summon creation much easier because there isn't the pressure about making a mistake (another theme of summon creation since you cannot "course correct" a summon like a character, once a summon is approved that is how it will always be). One lesson we have had hammered in over the 9 years of NA is that complex summons fail where simple summons thrive.

 

 

Q: Why are Clones always hit when the original is missed?

A: This rule has a few different reasons to it, and it dates back to almost the earliest days of clone rules. In fact, I am really surprised that this rule has survived this long without being more heavily questioned. There are three major reasons for this rule, one mechanical, one flavorful, and one gameplay

 

Flavor- The basic troupe of clones originally is that you make copies of yourself and the opponent does not know which one is real. This means that the "flavor" when you have clones on the field is that the opponent gets a 100% chance to hit, but there is a chance that they are hitting a clone instead of you. This means that when you "dodge" an attack with clones on the field you are not actually "dodging", the opponent just hit a clone instead of you.

 

Mechanical- Clones are powerful. Another player on the field, even with fractions of the stats, is powerful. It is like getting extra main phases, even if you get very little modifiers they can still be powerful. We wanted to build in a way to chip away at clones that was both simple but effective. Allowing a clone to be hit every time the user dodged created a way for clones to stay in check. Clones are a risk, you have to sacrifice a main phase to create them and wait a whole turn to use them, but the payoff is very big and much worth the risk. If the opponent cannot deal with the clones in that time, they can really turn the tide of a battle.

 

Gameplay- Aiming for a clone and then missing is a HUGE feel bad moment. If you single target a clone and miss them, there are few worse feelings in the game. If you do an AoE and miss some, doesn't feel too bad. If you do a multi target and kill 2/4, also doesn't feel bad. But single target on a clone just to miss is a terrible feeling. This rules basically says that you can just target the user and if you miss you get a consolation prize of hitting a clone. Removes that feel bad moment from the game.

 

So those are the three reasons behind that specific rule. The flavor and gameplay ones are the big drivers for the rule to be honest, the mechanical one could have been addressed in a number of different ways aside this. 

[ZeroFate]

Why is the upkeep cost for single bloodline organs (like having one sharingan eye) so high (2x)? I understand that it's partially based on Kakshi, but even he didn't burn out that quickly. And yes I suppose it's partially a deterrent to keep people from murdering each other hunger games style for their eyes, but I would think the threat of becoming either a missing-nin in your own village or a bounty target in another village (since it's fairly obvious if you've stolen somebody's sensory organs) would be enough for that. Most bloodlines have an average of 5% upkeep per turn, so for a single eye you'd have to pay 10%, and unless you're planning on going full taijutsu for a character, you're going to be burning through your chakra so fast that it's practically useless (effectively punishing people who would actually want to use one. If they want their Kakashi clones, who are we to argue?). And if you do end up with a spare eye for one reason or another it'll be hard to do anything with, since nobody's going to buy it from you for the same reason. Maybe change the upkeep to something like 1.25x-1.5x?

[Rei]

With Fang, Kumo, Iwa and Ame developing more sophisticated technology, what are the limits on technological progress from a micro (i.e., walkman), macro (i.e., tv stations) and  global (i.e., internet) perspective?

 

 

[Azure]

Where do I download the game?

[cntrstrk14]

Q: Why do bloodlines with stolen organs require 2x upkeep when half the organs are taken (1 eye instead of 2, etc)?

A: The answer to this is actually very simple (unfortunately), and I am surprised that I got through like five questions before I got to one like this. I was sure that the first question would be something like this. The answer is that the system is used so infrequently and made so hastily that it was just thrown up and then never really looked at again. For instance, I believe this is approximately how the conversation went.
 
"Some people are trying to steal Uchiha eyes, we should make a system for how that works."

"Okay, well if they steal is they can pay for an operation to implant it."

"Awesome."

"Cool."

"Oh wait- what if they only get one of the eyes? It would be unfair if two people each got one eye from one dead Uchiha and both got access to the bloodline, right?"

"Oh, good thought. Well its only half the bloodline, so double the cost- right?"

"Right."

"Cheerio."
 
And that was the last time we talked about it ever. Could it be revisited- yes. Is it high on our priority list- unfortunately not. The key part is that it is very infrequently used and since it is under powered instead of overpowered it means that it is just unusable rather than wrecking someone's day; which means its less likely to get more attention hastily.
 
 
Q: With Fang, Kumo, Iwa and Ame developing more sophisticated technology, what are the limits on technological progress from a micro (i.e., walkman), macro (i.e., tv stations) and global (i.e., internet) perspective?

A: First let me preface answer with a bit of information. All of the following are my opinions, and mine alone. They have not been officially discussed with staff, but as the head admin my weight is a bit larger when we discuss such topics. However this means that anything I say here COULD be overturned at a later time so its not concrete. This is honestly just my opinion on what is best for the site and the game.
 
Now, this is a great question because there is a lot being asked here. The core of the question as I see it is "what are the limits that we allow NA technology to go to before we feel that it loses the ninja world feel?". This is important because with the introduction of certain mechanics, ninja magic becomes somewhat obsolete and non-chakra humans can suddenly preform magic like effects. This would be fine for a regular RP, but it would greatly take away from what makes the Naruto world interesting and honestly would make this an all different type of RP all together.
 
Let me start with what I've laid down as law. There are two pieces of technology that I have banned and will (almost 100%) never see the light of day on NA. Gunpowder advanced enough to power a gun like weapon and the combustion engine. 
 
Gunpowder- If guns were introduced to NA it would just not be a wizard ninja RP anymore. Gun's give anyone with a finger the power to kill even the most powerful ninja with no more training than a five year old. And if we were to say that Jounin could dodge bullets or survive gun shots, then they are not really guns anyways- so what is the point in introducing them? Cannons could possibly see use in NA, but the type of refinement needed in the gunpowder is different and they would be highly inaccurate, slow and unwieldy for use against individuals. They would be for sieging a fort or naval/airship combat if anything.
 
Combustion Engine- This feels just a bit too modern to really feel right in the "old style" japanese world. Computers, telephones, computers all actually fit, but when you create a combustion engine you start to fill the streets with loud noisy cars instead of foot traffic and the feel becomes very different. Its like the original Avatar the Last Airbender series and the Korra series. Very different feel to the world.
 
With those two out of the way however, I can address the rest in broad strokes. (Everything will actually come down to individual approval by staff, and as I said I do not actually speak for the entire staff right now on this issue). Radio and at single channel television exists in canon. Batteries exist. Computers (to apparently a decently advanced degree) exist. It is very easy to see how these would jump further in advancement in 100 years. The problem is that we need to understand that we cannot use our own world as a 1:1 basis for how this world will evolve. A world where you can run at 50 miles per hour or shoot fireballs from your fists doesn't need the same things that our world did. There wasn't as much as a drive to invent such things. 
 
It all comes down to the feel of the world. We put 100 years between NA and the canon universe so that we could get away from any canon characters, we wanted all our characters to be original. But we also do not want to lose the FEEL of the world to technological advancement. More fantastical creations such as crude automatons and airships fit a very fantastical world, where guns and cars do not. We allow technology to exist in the NA universe so long as it does not ruin the flavor of the world. That is why a lot of the time you will see technology "localized" to certain areas. "Ninja villages don't have phones because telephone wires going in and out of the villages are not secure". "Radio only travels so many miles, all stations are local to the city". etc. These are because we want the world to feel like the one in the manga.
 
So full circle to the question again (Read, TL;DR)....
 
At a micro level we have processors for computers, but they are crude and no where near our current processors. Radio technology has evolved to wireless headsets over short distances, but no long distance radio. Computers exist in probably the type that you would have seen in the manga, approximately early 80's technology if even that- it is not a focus and it is very rare.
 
At a macro level we have local television broadcasts (for official use, televisions are not something normal families own). Broadcasts only reach short distances and need physical wiring for anything with a visual signal. Any long cable attempts have failed to carry a signal (between villages).
 
At a global level this does not exist. Taking messages from one part of the world to another is a core part of many missions. Giving instant communication would make those mostly worthless and ruin the feel of the world. The internet is something this would has never and will likely never see.
 
Source: http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Technology
 
 
Q: Where do I download the game?

A: First off...

 
and...

 

Secondly, for those of you who don't understand, this is a long running joke about NA. This probably has its roots in as far back as NA 4.0 when we first moved over to the .com website and the URL we use now. We would often get new members who would join the site without any idea of what Ninja Academy really was. Because when you made a new account you did not get access to the entire forum, just the creation and general areas. You could not see any role play. In the early days it would be ever few weeks where a new member would make an account and post in general "Where do I download the game?". I like to think this is because our website put a very professional front that made people think we were legit. I blame a mixture of 2004 internet websites and our good work. Unfortunately, 95% of these people would be told that this was actually a text based role playing game and that was the last we ever heard of them. I think ONE might have stayed. Maybe. But that is the story. We haven't gotten a post like that in years, but the joke still lingers on like a bad fart.

[ZeroFate]

Why are Sealing jutsu automatically deemed forbidden (and therefore Sennin)? Seems a bit extreme. I don't think it takes a Kage candidate to seal a kunai in a scroll for transport, and it's feasible that there are other sealing techniques that could be performed by people of lower rank.

 

Why do Hybrid jutsu get such weird modifiers? Let me do a side-by-side comparison to show exactly what I'm talking about. 
Let's take two characters, one with 2000 stat points in Ninjutsu and one with 1000 stat points in Taijutsu and another 1000 in Ninjutsu. The character with the 2000 ninjutsu stat will receive an extra 500 damage to their techniques from the regular ninjutsu modifier. The hybrid character, however, will only gain 250. This seems like it was done specifically to discourage hybrid jutsu, to be honest, and as someone who's making a hybrid character, I'm really interested in the though process here. 

[cntrstrk14]

Q: Why are Sealing Jutsu all forbidden jutsu? Seems like there could be sealing jutsu that put kunai in scrolls that could be used by lower ranks?

A: The problem here is that you are thinking of the flavor definition of "Sealing Jutsu" and looking at the mechanical jutsu tag definition of "Sealing Jutsu" as laid out by the NA rules. Let me start with the first line of the Sealing Jutsu rules. 

Sealing Jutsu denotes a certain type of ninjutsu style that effectively marks a target with a seal that will affect that character outside of the current battle.

Translation: The term "Sealing Jutsu" is defined as "a certain type of ninjutsu style that effectively marks a target with a seal that will affect that character outside of the current battle" when in reference to the battle system.

 

There is nothing stopping you from making a Ninjutsu technique that places kunai in scrolls and retrieves them, it should would not be "Ninjutsu [sealing]" because that is not how the rules define sealing mechanically.

 

We make the distinctions because we want rules to govern effects that last beyond the end of a battle. The majority of the effects are seals placed on users, and thus we carved out the design space with the name Sealing.

 

 

Q: Why do hybrid modifiers suck?

A: Because the rules are garbage and that is exactly why we are working to fix them right now.

 

The real answer is that hybrid modifiers were done in far too wide a brush stroke than they should have been. There are two major points that we have to always consider when balancing hybrid users. We have to make sure that being hybrid is not better than being non hybrid- and we also have to make sure that being hybrid is not just strictly worse than not. Non hybrid users were given large modifiers and damage for their "all in" on their stat choice. The hybrid argument was "they have flexibility so they get half modifiers". The current hybrid modifiers again go back to the origins of Ninja Academy when we made all of the rules and the math was hastily done. So we looked at the stats and said "well if a technique is half ninjutsu and half taijutsu, it should take half the modifiers from each and BAM! Done." 

 

This would work in a world where we actually had 11 stats for every character. However, the average character actually only has 8 stats (except genjutsu users, they have the hidden passive of only have 7 stats!). The problem is that when spreading out stat points, they get pooled in the following places.

 

Health

Chakra & Stamina

Offensive Stat (Nin, Tai & Gen)

Defense

Concentration

Speed

Accuracy

Evasion

 

So, as you pointed out, someone who puts 2000 in their "Offensive Stat" as a Ninjutsu user gets +500 damage where a hybrid users only gets +250 damage for the same stat allocation.

 

"But older cntr, they have flexibility, so its balanced!"

"Horseshit. What flexibility does a Taijutsu/Ninjutsu hybrid have over a Ninjutsu user?"

"They can use Taijutsu damage mods and Ninjutsu stat reduction!"

"And thats worth a half damage mod? Do you really think they are as powerful as a Combative Medic? You think a 16.6% cost efficiency increase is worth one half the damage modifier that they would get?"

".... yes?"

"Go back in your hole cntr from yester-year. You're a fucking moron."

Bringing us full circle to my original point.

"Because the rules are garbage and that is exactly why we are working to fix them right now."

[Cellar Door]

KC's List Of Questions Nobody But Tony Can Answer:

1: Why is Syaoran a cunt?

2: I bought a mount from the item mall, and I still haven't received it in my mailbox, what gives?

3: When are we going to be able to use flying mounts in the non-expansion content?

4: Why do you close your eyes when we make love?

5: Does Azure still count as an Admin?

6: Just nod if the previous answer was a 'no' but you want us to act like it's a 'yes'.

7: Do you think a spaghetti sandwich is a good idea?

[cntrstrk14]

Q: Why is Syaoran a cunt?

A: Syaoran is very much so not a cunt, however in the context of you being an asshat- he's only like that to you because he's never quite respected you since 'that event'.

Q: I bought a mount from the item mall, and I still haven't received it in my mailbox, what gives?

A: The support team forgot to punch holes in the mailing box. We've been heavily fined by UPS for shipping perishable goods and the mount has been placed into a quarantine section of their Kansas City facility until the local authorities can finish their investigation. No replacements will be given as per the terms of use you didn't bother reading.

Q: When are we going to be able to use flying mounts in the non-expansion content?

A: When you join the IAF and get your Crimson Ox.

Q: Why do you close your eyes when we make love?

A: Because you always leave in your Sharingan contacts when we do and it weird me out.

Q: Does Azure still count as an Admin?

A: Of course he does. Of course no one noticed when I demoted him for the SQL backup and of course no one noticed that I've replaced him with a puppet government in its place. I mean, who else is going to change masks?

Q: Just nod if the previous answer was a 'no' but you want us to act like it's a 'yes'.

A: ...

Q: Do you think a spaghetti sandwich is a good idea?

A: No.

[Kouta]

I have Ask the Admin questions!!!

1. Why hasn't NA developed any Legendary Jutsu of its own? We have Chidori and Rasengan, but NOBODY in all of our genius and legendary characters has crafted a jutsu as magnificent as Kishimoto can shit out?

2. Whats the distinction between a Jinchuuriki and a Yokai Jinchuuriki, system-wise? Are we going to see more PC Jinchuuriki, or will they be restricted to Yokai Jinchuuriki?

3. Why do we essentially let people make whatever clans they want in whatever village they want? Whats the point of having village clans if we just hand wave everything as "Oh, war happened. Clans got mixed up." Back in the day, we made it a hard and fast rule that a clanned ninja outside his village unchecked = death.

[cntrstrk14]

Q: Why hasn't NA developed any Legendary Jutsu of its own on the same scale as Rasengan or Chidori?

A: Well, this question is a bit loaded because it assumes that we have not, which really just comes down to a matter of opinion. For instance, Syaoran's Kyuukyoku Mangkukulaman (Final God of Fire) or Essence Clone is something I would consider to be on the same level of awesomeness. My other characters are not high enough level to have a signature technique and I am not as familiar with other characters...

There are two other reasons behind this, and they are philosophical differences between the canon Naruto world and the NA world. In Kishimoto's canon universe, characters have FAR fewer techniques that they actively use. It's not just Naruto using Rasengan over and over in many different shapes and sizes, but Kakashi who supposedly knows 1000 jutsu only REALLY uses Chidori and his "warp away the world" eye technique. Its part of the story writing, you want characters to have their own unique techniques that the users can identify. If everyone has 10+ techniques they use regularly it becomes hard to tell them apart. This leads readers to see "signature" or "legendary" techniques that really are not that much cooler than Jounin+ techniques on NA. On NA, because it is a game we allow you to learn a large selection of different techniques to use with your character. The average NA character probably knows more techniques by Chuunin level than the average Naruto character learns in a lifetime.

The last portion of this question could be talking about the heavy training/restrictions of the Rasengan/Chidori. They are legendary because they are restricted heavily in who can learn them and how. This is mostly because of the high demand of players who want the technique- that it to say that we want to preserve the "legendary" status of the techniques by keeping them rare. Most free form Naruto RP's allow everyone who signs up a Sharingan and a Rasengan at the front door. You have toddlers running around pre school with Mangekyou and Wind Rasengans and it doesn't take long for this to feel like an anime convention rather than a living, breathing, believable world. We make these techniques rare because that's what they are suppose to be, and we like to make a world that believes in itself because it creates a better immersion.

Q: Whats the distinction between a Jinchuuriki and a Yokai Jinchuuriki, system-wise? Are we going to see more PC Jinchuuriki, or will they be restricted to Yokai Jinchuuriki?

A: The system distinction is that Yokai Jinchuuriki exist within the system and Tailed Beast Jinchuuriki do not, and will not. They would be so far beyond the realms of balancing that they will never be allowed in a PC. Why? Because it comes down to one of three options.

A.) We lower the power level of the tailed beasts to make them fair and playable in the game, basically diminishing their power to become an empty shell of what they once were and really losing the whole point to them.

B.) We give them justice, and break the system.

C.) We leave them up to be represented by role play and not system, keeping their exact power ambiguous.

We've chosen to go with C. Yokai were created to fill the mechanical role of a Jinchuuriki, which is something players have wanted since the beginning of NA. Our last attempt was to just give people the Bijuu, which lead to some very weird RP moments and history. Not to mention that there is a hard cap of 9 spots for the entire website. Yokai solve these problems by being the "little brothers" of the tailed beasts and being potentially limitless in their forms, creativity and roles. Yes, its not as "cool" as the big 9, but its much more balanced and it doesn't suffer from the constant problem that NA faces which is people who just disappear out of the blue and leave characters and stories hanging.

Q: Why do we allow people to make characters from clans outside of their villages? In the past villages use to hunt down and kill these missing members.

A: This is an interesting question, and it comes down to the fact that we want people to have fun and play what they want. PC's are (usually) the "abnormal" characters in the universe, the interesting stories that live interesting lives. They are the main characters of their own books, and each one plays a special story in the world lore. There are countless NPC's that are not the "special" chosen ones in the universe and live their lives out doing the non spectacular things.

If you were to look at books or TV shows as documentaries of real lives you might ask the question "Why are all the characters that have shows such interesting and strange people with these really weird things that happen to them? What makes them special just because they are the main character? But what if you look at it the other way? What if they were chosen to have a book or TV show created around them BECAUSE they were special? This is the kind of thought I put into the player characters in any multiplayer video game. For every PC in any game universe there are thousands of mundane people who are not special in the world. We don't focus on these people because no one wants to follow the mundane life of Joe Smith of Konoha who finally achieved Chuunin level by doing guard duty on the northern gate for the last 9 years while finally paying off his home and raising his family.

So that is why we allow it, because the stories are interesting and they keep players happy and enjoying the game. Even in Naruto's universe, Kirigakure had the Byakugan and Konoha didn't try and kill him on the spot (or at least wasn't successful). Rules are made to have exceptions made to it, even Kishimoto recognizes that. When barriers are put up, people innately try and push them as far as they can and break them.

All that being said, we as staff do take these issues rather seriously. If a player wants to have a character from a clan in another village we normally push back on them and ask them to reconsider. If they don't have a compelling in character reason for it we will also often just say no to the request. The cases that do exist were done for compelling reasons, we don't just allow anyone to do it "just because".

[Kouta]

More, I say, More!

1. What decides the order in which things on NA (puppets, pets, bloodlines, paths) get updated? What's the current order?

2. Why differentiate between Game Masters and Artificers? Why not bolster your potential modmin ranks and consider them Mini-Mods in full? It seems weird to say "I trust you (under supervision) with the power to add things to the game, but not with the ability to implement them in a story." Or Vice Versa.

3. How do you think NA is doing as a game against Power Creep? Do you think ninja now are inherently more powerful than 3.0 or 2.0 Ninja? How do you intend to keep expanding the game without introducing Power Creep?

4. On a related note, with so many gray areas eradicated, do you feel like you traded creativity in creations for stability of system? A lot of techniques now-a-days are just the same thing in a different element or a different style. They all are pulling the same statuses, and combine that with damage in some way.

[cntrstrk14]

Q: What decides the order in which things on NA get updated? What's the current order/status of puppets, pets, bloodlines, paths?

A: Honestly, 95% of the time the order of things is at my whim. Normally that means that as soon as things are finished on certain systems we will push them out the door. This means the more interested staff members are in certain systems the more discussion is done on them and the more work that gets done. Since I am the bottleneck for pretty much all rules to go up on the site I get the final word on what is in an update and what is not. Normally things that are "critical" that need to be fixed because the game is broken because of them get highest priority. Things that are not very fun or under powered get less priority because they are simply not used. Its more important for us to fix something that can make players very unhappy because Timmy from Kirigakure is flying around the continent murdering level 80's with his level 25 Ninjutsu.

Recently there has been more of an order to updates. With the path updates this is because there is a dependency for certain systems to get their new face lift before we can update the paths. In paths update 1 we went through and did the updates that we could without needing to work on other systems. In path updates 2 there are some systems that need to get their facelift before we can work on the paths that rely on them. If you check out the last update you can see the paths outlined that have dependencies.

Getting to the specifics, I normally do not like to release the details of upcoming patches because they are subject to change and I don't want to deal with members asking "but you promised we would see these updates, why aren't they here?". So with that in mind, the next two patches have some hard goals that I want them to achieve so I am pretty confident that these will be what we roll out.

Patch 8.1.1: Puppets, Poisons, Traps

Patch 8.1.2: Paths Part 2

Bloodlines and Pets are currently not on our radar.

Q: Why are there Gamemasters and Artificers?

A: Okay, to start let me quote the staff descriptions from the main page for each so I know we are all on the same page when I start discussing this.

Game Artificer

Realm: Creation Forum, Commerce, The World

Game Artificers are a hybrid of what their name suggests. They hold equal power in the game and out of it, in the creation forum. Their power and limitations are equal to both Gamemasters and Artificers; they have shown just enough ability to hold both jobs.

GAs may move, delete, edit, merge, etc. other member's posts within Creations.

GAs can approve anything in the creation area.

GAs can approve exchanges within Commerce.

GAs may control NPC in game.

GAs may recommend EXP and Rewards for players.

GAs have access to Artificer and GM Chats.

Artificer

Realm: Creation Forum

The Artificers are members who show knowledge in the system enough to volunteer their time in the approval section of Ninja Academy. They do not work in the game world like Gamemasters and they do not have equal power to the staff. These people will work with the staff and members to balance incoming creations and keep things fair. They have the power to approve and place their input on creations but final say in their actions will be at staff discretion.

Artificers may move, delete, edit, merge, etc. other member's posts within Creations.

Artificers can approve anything in the creation area.

Artificers have access to Artificer Chat.

Gamemaster

Realm: The World

These are members who have shown skill and ability in roleplaying and wish to use their skills to help the Ninja Academy world progress smoothly and with fun. Their sole purpose is to use NPCs to assist anyone in the game to progress their characters and help the Kage run their village. Unlike the staff, they do not have weight in the approval section.

GMs may control NPC in game.

GMs may recommend EXP and Rewards for players.

GMs have access to GM Chat.

So we have Admins and Moderators, and then we have Artificers, Gamemasters and Game Artificers. So why is there a split between Artificers and Gamemasters? It's actually pretty simple, the two jobs are wildly different skill sets and someone who is qualified for one is not necessarily qualified for the other. Though Gamemasters and Artificers are both very important for the website, Artificers are more critically analyzed on their performance than GM's since their job is much more technical. A Gamemaster can be doing a good job so long as the people they are running are having fun and they don't introduce dinosaurs and space ships to the game without getting any clearance from the big wigs. An Artificers is directly responsible for the power level of the game itself.

Usually there are more players who we trust with Gamemaster since the largest qualifications are time + enthusiasm + writing skill. Artificers need to have a strong mathematical understanding and be able to know the system to a large enough extend to anticipate problems before they happen. Theoretically a brand new player who took some time on the wiki and was careful could be a Gamemaster, but they would never have the experience yet to be an Artificer.

On the reverse side (and much more rare) we find people who are very brilliant with balancing and designing system mechanics, but are either unenthusiastic about GM'ing other people, lacking the time to do so, or are possibly just not very creative writers. This is usually much more rare, but be acknowledge their existence.

Game Artificers are both. They are the "mini mods" you are looking for.

So why don't we just make all GM's and Artificers into GA's? Because promoting people from GM to GA who are not familiar with the system actually makes more work for moderators and admins. If things go through approvals and need to be brought back, that is a lot more work and effort than if they are properly approved in the first place. There is a lot of learning involved in properly approving creations, and an Artificer has to have the experience and mindset to learn all of it.

Q: How do you think NA is doing as a game against Power Creep? Do you think ninja now are inherently more powerful than 3.0 or 2.0 Ninja? How do you intend to keep expanding the game without introducing Power Creep?

A: This is an excellent question. One thing that is a blessing about a user generated content site like NA is that the game is very resilient to power creep. There is almost infinite depth to the design space that we have for creations. There is no pressure for us to release content on a schedule that has to "outdo" earlier content. We don't need to keep one upping ourselves like other games with scheduled content need to. We don't make things that are interesting because they are better than what you had before, they are just different.

Do I believe that ninja currently are more powerful than in 3.0? Well, that is hard to say seeing how the highest level in 3.0 was level 25 or so. So yes, ninja are more powerful just because they are just higher level and have access to more creations. But at the same time, 3.0 was the wild west of creations and the systems were wildly under tested. I believe that a select few 3.0 ninja of level 25 could probably kick the crap out of a level 25 ninja of 8.0. But that was because the systems they were built on were broken. If anything, we are in danger of a power de-creep over time as we wrangle in more systems to balance them better and test them more fully. And don't get scared, because that means that as we understand things better and how their balancing work we can let them grow in a controlled manner. For instance, it was not until recent NA history that we started to allow critical strike range and block ranges to grow. This is directly related to us learning their power and where we could push them without fear of breaking.

Do I believe that ninja currently are more powerful than in 2.0? Jesus Christ Lord All Mighty No. Let me run you through a scenario.

Kinsen Raz (Sennin) gathers his strength, pulling upon the natural elements in his surroundings and hurls a Wind Shuriken Rasengan at Uchiha Naruta (Female Uchiha named after the legendary Naruto; Gennin).

Uchiha Naruta does a cartwheel and dodges while making 27 Kage Bunshin.

Kinsen Raz creates a full opening and brings his Rasengan down on Uchiha Naruta, aiming to catch her between his attack and the floor.

Uchiha Naruta uses Kawamari no Jutsu and replaces herself with Kinsen Raz, hitting him with his own attack.

ooc: (Raz) You can't do that, you didn't even roll for the first attack.

ooc: (Naruta) Sure I did, I rolled a 100 to dodge on both attacks.

ooc: (Raz) But your roll is not in the logs, I can't see it!

ooc: (Naruta) What is a log? I just roll these dice on my desk and you're suppose to trust me!

ooc: (Raz) ._.

Uchiha Naruta defecates on Kinsen Raz's corpse from her base on the moon.

Q: As more systems get defined and balanced, do you believe that we are trading creativity for system stability?

A: I believe strongly that restrictions breed creativity. If you hand a person a blank sheet of paper and say "draw" they will have a hard time coming up with a great picture. They will likely just draw you something mediocre within their comfort zone. They go to old favorite tropes of their own. Some geniuses may be able to make great things, but that is the outlying case. When you give a person restrictions where they have to create something within a given structure they can get pushed outside of their comfort zone and create new things even they couldn't imagine when they started. I honestly believe that this is the same for NA.

I would challenge you to look back on NA creations over time. Bloodlines especially I feel have gotten more unique and interesting as we have gone on. Skills are not all power houses like they were in 4.0/5.0, each one is a building block to make the whole picture of a character. Yes, we have restricted what creations can do over time, but I believe that the quality of creations has risen over time as well. I don't think that restricting what creations can do necessarily means that we restrict the creativity of what members can make.

[Cho Hakkai]

With the 2nd oldest character on the forum, I gotta ask, how is it having Syaoran all these years? Do you still enjoy using him? Please tell me it was great that you became the first PC kage on the forum. What difficulties did you have with him over the years and what did you do to overcome that? annnd, would it be worth it to make him an NPC to release a character slot?

 

Trying to not have another 4 year hiatus.

 

And most importantly, where do I download the game? This site seems cool but I can't find it with all that text. TL;DR

Edited March 11, 2014 by Cho Hakkai

[cntrstrk14]

Q: As the oldest character on the forum, how has it been having Syaoran all of these years? Do you still enjoy playing him? How was it becoming the first PC kage? Have you ever had difficulties with him over the years? How did you overcome them? Finally, would you make him a NPC to free up a slot.

I.e. - Dear Abby, I'm bored with Cho, but I don't want to be. Please help.

A: Woah, that's a lot of questions. Syaoran is a character that has grown with me and continues to grow with every arc he is in. When I started with him in NA 3.0 he was a perverted crappy character that was not really good at anything. He had no ambition to really do a whole lot, he was loud and no one really respected him. In short, he was Naruto. Due to our original training system based on NRG he had a really high chakra and no other stats for awhile too. He was REALLY shitty for the first like 20 levels. What I am getting at is that I enjoyed taking this really shitty character and watching him climb up to greatness. Placing your character purposely very far away from the goal they want makes for an interesting development over time. He's grown with me over the years.

Do I enjoy playing him? I do. It's a different type of enjoyment now though. Syaoran is my vanilla character. What that means is that he is the closest to ME. My other characters are very different from how I am in real life, but Syaoran is very close to what I would be if I was dropped in this work of ninja wizards. He has a very different history and life experiences and I've let those shape him and his decisions, but I like to think that Syaoran is the person I would have become if I was in the world he was in with the circumstances he has lived through. Part of why I play Syaoran is momentum, but part of it is that I still find it odd that this little perverted shitty kid from Iwagakure is now one of the most powerful men on the continent. And beneath that robe and responsibility he is still that same kid. That journey is what keeps me wanting to play, and continue to see where it takes him.

Another thing that has kept me going is that I never, NEVER plan what is going to happen with him. Syaoran moves with the story and the other characters. I don't very often play beyond the post I am in. If something happens in the story, he will change his plans to adapt. Syaoran is a result of going with the flow of NA. He is not something I crafted from the ground up, he is what I was left with after interacting with other players and GM's over the years. Giving up some of that control keeps him interesting to me.

I've had many challenges over the years with Syaoran. As I said, he goes with the flow so I don't have plans that get ruined or goals that I can't achieve that discourage me. Early on I got bored with him and I did briefly retire him to NPC status during the summer of Jake. I brought him back out of retirement afterwards when I decided I didn't want to give up on NA, and since then I've never even considered NPC status. When I am bored of Syaoran I just don't play him. I've let him sit for a year+ doing nothing actively, just saying he is off doing stuff in the background. I don't need to be at the helm for my character to be doing cool stuff off screen. You won't get EXP, but they can still do stuff in the background that you don't need to RP out (so long as you don't step on other people's toes or contradict other people).

On that note, one important thing for character progression I have found. I use to put every cool idea I had into Syaoran. He has a lot of techniques and items that are all over the place because I had different ideas over the years that I wanted to use and he was "the outlet". Now when I want to play something different I will often create an NPC to GM people with that I will use as an outlet. Realizing that your main character doesn't have to be your outlet for everything keeps them focused and less scattered feeling. When your character gets scattered they are less compelling to play.

I've never honestly considered making him an NPC after the summer of Jake though. If I ever wanted to make a new character slot I could just ask for staff approval. The spirit of the character slot rule is to make sure people don't make too many characters for them to handle just because they are a little bored. I'm pretty sure no one is going to argue my dedication to the site if I wanted a 4th or 5th PC character.

Overall- I enjoy playing Syaoran because I give up control on what is going on with him. I am half controlling him and half along for the ride with him. My best advice for Cho would be to do the same. Don't go in with a plan you want to do, just go with the flow. Let GM's and other characters have serious impacts on your character development and let him honestly go where he is pushed. Let me know if this helped.

[Hardcore Skittlez]

Has Anyone Really Been Far Even as Decided to Use Even Go Want to do Look More Like?

 

And more seriously, this is more a question of you as a player over you as the head admin: How would you honestly deal with a situation in which Syaoran died? I know I've made hypothetical plans of mass Hachinin slaying in the past(it's fun to think about how to topple the 'gods' of the NA-universe), but I've only really talked to Azure about how he'd feel if Yatako died before. Do you think losing Syaoran would kill your drive to keep RPing on NA, at least for a time?

 

One more series, as the Admin this time: While I understand the balance reasoning behind the implementation of "Advanced Systems" and the limitations preventing others from stacking multiple systems, how would we deal with instances where a System-less clan character was given an Advanced System? For example, if a Nara/Yamanaka were to get their hands on a Byakugan or a Yokai? Same thing extends to the Inuzuka-- if an Inuzuka character were to gain a Yokai or a Kekkei Genkai, how would you deal with that on a balance level? Would it be a matter making the player choose between their [Clan jutsu/skills/pet] and the [bloodline/Gates/Yokai]? Or would one of them simply be suspended while the other was active?

Edited March 16, 2014 by thepaintrolley

[Cellar Door]

Has Anyone Really Been Far Even as Decided to Use Even Go Want to do Look More Like?

Did I just have a stroke?

[cntrstrk14]

Q: As a player, how would you honestly deal with a situation in which Syaoran died? Do you think losing Syaoran would kill your drive to keep RPing on NA, at least for a time?

A: In all honesty, it might. It depends on how it went down. If Syaoran died to a poor die roll in some crappy battle I would probably be pretty upset about it and I may take some time away from NA. If he died at the peak of an arc and gave his life for some cause, I think I might be fine with it. Syaoran has been my main character for a long time, and I have put years and years of effort into him, but he is not my main way of "playing" the game of NA. The most pride and fun I have with the game is balancing and creating things for other people to use. Syaoran is my test case and I do really enjoy him, but he is not the reason I log on and work on NA each day. The whole site and world are all in one way or another my creations and Syaoran just happens to be one of the oldest and portions of that.


Q: How would you deal with a character from a clan without an Advanced System (bloodline) getting a hold of a bloodline from another clan that is an Advanced System?

A: Okay, so before I answer directly let me back up a bit. The term "Advanced System" is new but the idea is almost as old as the battle system itself. We have always had the idea that bloodlines were on their own level of power and that we did not want people having multiple. Early on we made the rule that a player may only have one bloodline at a time as we found out just how quickly they would get out of hand. Even the Celestial Gates were thought to take up a "bloodline slot" as it was called for a long time. Advanced Systems are just us putting an official badge on the term "bloodline slot" and nailing down exactly where these boundaries are. Clans like Nara and Inuzuka who do not have bloodlines were approved with this knowledge that they were "lesser" to an extent than clans with bloodlines. The upset to those clans was that they could use the SP elsewhere to be effective rather than into their bloodline, while also getting some lesser perks for their clan choice.

And that is what a lot of this balancing comes down to is choice. Or more precisely, meaningful choice. There are two choices on this site that we (for the most part) make you stick to once you make them. Those two choices are clans and paths. When you choose to make a Nara you are not going to get a bloodline/Advanced System option from your clan, but you do get some other cool abilities you can use. The idea is that you will find an Advanced System outside of your clan that you can utilize, whether its the Celestial Gates, a Yokai or even another Bloodline. However, we still reward you for the choice of the Nara clan that you made the same way we reward you with cheaper access to abilities and skills with the Path. The -1 SP is not what balanced the Path, it is the closing of the door on the other Paths that make it powerful- and the same thing applies for all clans (even those without bloodlines). 

 

So to answer your question, we would do nothing. An Inuzuka with the Sharingan is okay in our books and they would not suffer any penalties for doing having both. Of course GETTING the Sharingan will involve some work and hoop jumping, but that is another issue. Systimatically there is nothing outrageous about it because those clans were balanced with the knowledge that these "bloodline slot" skills and abilities could be combined with them at some point in the future.

[Kouta]

Why are Stat Descriptions and Status Effects located on the same page on the Main Site, despite having very few similarities?

[cntrstrk14]

Q: Why are Stat descriptions and Status Effects located on the same page on the Main Site, despite having very few similarities?

A: So this, as far as I can remember, is due to the original version of the website. For reference, here is the original 4.0 website, the first iteration of a separate rules page outside of the forum. If you click on "Basic RPG Rules" you will see that each page was separated to its own section. The full list was "RPG Rules, Battle System, Level System, Jutsu Rules, Equipment Rules, Effects & Stats, and Pets, Clones & Summonings". All of these pages except for "Effects & Stats" are written rules using paragraphs.

So I guess the best answer is that Status Effects and Stats are both just simply lists rather than rules, and they both felt more like glossary pages rather than rules pages. As such, and because the original rules were already felt to be spread out amongst too many pages, they were lumped into a single page. And especially now since we've actually grown to have a real Glossary and Rules Index page, these seems even more odd. Since then we've inherited the layout of the rules for no really good reason other "if it is not broken, don't fix it".