Hey Tyler,

Thank you for getting back to me.

I did report this person previously, but I didn't this time because the misconduct happened on a Discord server that's not operated by Naruto Online staff. With this particular individual, they've stalked me on PVP modes and attacked me repeatedly every time the opportunity was made available to them. Their line to me has always been, "Those are PVP modes, get over it," but it's hard to "get over" mechanics where they constantly have an unfair advantage. That's one of the reasons I proposed changes to Sage World Battlefields.

Minimizing the message board is a good suggestion. It's just that I see those comments sometimes and don't really see the point in having the Battle tab enabled when it's more likely than not those people don't play on the same server. It's just an opportunity for players to mouth off at each other.

A flowing bracket would definitely work. The only reason I didn't suggest it is that it could be a tricky thing to implement unless you have an established algorithm for detecting when players qualify for those brackets. I'd love to work with you on honing this suggestion further.

I will be taking a break from the game until I can see some of these suggestions implemented. I've made suggestions to developers before but haven't had much luck having any sort of dialogue. We'll see.

I'm not holding my breath.

Thank you, Tyler.

When I write suggestions, I don't expect changes to come. I put them up just to say I have and go on the record.

One of the reasons I'm at peace with stepping back from this game is the fact that there's no direct communication or recognition from developers. You will have staff say, "I'll forward these suggestions to the developers." Do we know that they sent our suggestions over? No. We kinda take them at their word. Do we know the developers received them and are incorporating those suggestions into a new version of the game? No, because we don't have that direct engagement.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the developers see the suggestions but don't act on them because they know players will not leave en masse. Naruto Online is addictive. They built the game to be addictive. Players will complain, players will come and go, but there are little financial motive for them to make these improvements because they don't have the financial incentive to. The status quo works for them.

But at some point, the Naruto Online gaming experience becomes a grind and the euphoria you may get from getting rare ninjas or achieving full breakthroughs or increasing your stats is short-lived. There will always be those players who will invest more than you in microtransactions to gain the upper edge. The developers want you to be angry, give in and pay to compete. That's their big revenue driver. But for players like me, it *s to see the same players over and over again, experience the same results over and over again, and have that happen on a daily basis with no consequence or diminishing effect whatsoever.

After playing this game for four years and always feeling like I'm several steps behind, of course the aggravation got to me. Of course it did. And when I lost my cool, I had to ask myself, "Is it really worth it?" I'll be a few thousand ingots that no developer is going to write me and say, "We hear you. We get it. We're going to fix this." I'd be shocked. Then again, I probably spent $200-300 on this game, sadly. Speaking directly to the developers should be a perk, right?