What about putting mini-towns in the game. Like you know, earth country (instead of going to a certain place at a certain level to kill kabuto which is pretty obvious) where you can get a special event like orochimaru's abandoned castle and instead you can find kabuto in their to make it harder to find him. These towns would have their own special events and have special things for certain things people have. For example, maybe rai ninjutsu in that lightning town. Also, what about a certain part in Fire Country that's an Uchiha town. i'm not sure how neji plans on doing the kekkai genkai but maybe you could recieve sharingan training there. Everybody could go into these towns but just have different effects. For example, maybe a sound villager entered konoha (since they had a war) you could randomly be attacked. Also, maybe instead of going to the ninja academy and training your specialty too, maybe we could have a totally different way to raise specialty? For example, you have a seperate bar for chakra experience. Say i'm using Rai ninjutsu and i use the grand fireball jutsu. I get my chakra experience up and once i get it full, i go to Lightning Country and go to their academy. Then you challenge your master and if you win, you get another skill point in rai ninjutsu.