I'm a big fan of having the Rinnegan require far more prerequisites than it already has. As it was stated in this thread earlier, by obtaining access to the 1st path as a reset, this gives a person far more (and way more powerful) abilities than any other initiate KG. To summarize quickly, just the first path allows the user to utilize: every jutsu element, Bansho Ten'in, Shinra Tensei, Chibaku Tensei, AND a "grand" Shinra Tensei. Keep in mind that the "grand" ST was able to obliterate 80%+ of Konoha in one move. The Chibaku Tensei can easily do the same taking into account that this gravitational ball apparently was enough to hinder Naruto's 8-tails form. That's pretty darn powerful. I won't even go into the higher paths for the sake of time since the rinnegan only gets more and more powerful from there as abilities are added on via other paths.
Now on the other hand, what can an initiate sharingan do? It allows the character to access up to a three tomoe sharingan as well as some random katon jutsu. That's it. Mangekyo is still locked, and even then, elite OP techniques like Izanagi/mi & perfected Susanoo are voided anyways. 1st reset in toad sage? Nothing is different RP-wise unless you like to summon a few toads. Initiate Byakugan? The typical "x-ray" abilities of the hyuuga and the hyuugan poking techniques. 1st stage of the Kaguya/Gates? These are power/speed boosters but still definitely not something that can take down an entire village in one go.
See where I'm going with this? Just in comparison to everything else, the rinnegan is the most straight-forward powerful KG in the system. And because of that, I believe that there should be a heavy set of requirements in order to use this OP KG. Despite all of this, I do agree with Kay and Zen that nobody's hard work should be left high and dry. If someone put in the work to get the resets for a rinnegan and byakugan thinking that they can continue to use both, they shouldn't be barred from using all rinnegan abilities just because they chose to be a hyuugan or have already reset into hyouton in the past. That's not fair. Someone who has a Master Byakugan put in just as much -if not more- work as someone who as a Master Sharingan reset. The idea of nerfing "none true" rinnegan works in theory, but how would you calculate out what exactly is a 50% decrease of the Asura path? What's 50% of the Animal Path? Calculations like that are a bit too subjective for a wildly freeform site such as this one.
Taking all of this into consideration, I propose this simple idea:
Users are able to access the abilities of the rinnegan after completing 8-reset total of the following:
- reset x4 in either Uchiha/Hyuuga
- reset x4 in either Hyouton/Mokuton
Only after those 8 resets will the user have the option of pursuing the 6-path and unlocking each path's ability one by one as people are already doing.
I know this proposition isn't following Kishimoto's recipe (Uchiha+Senju) for the Rinnegan to a T, but at the same time, this site is already taking cannon KG way beyond what I'm sure Kishi intended due to our ability to stack them. Rather than sticking to the manga like it's the bible and placing 30% of the SL community at a disadvantage, I say we deviate slightly from Kishi's manga (when absolutely necessary) to create a ruling that gives equal opportunity to 100%.
Using this way, everyone is happy. Hyuugans/Hyouton users are not forever excluded from obtaining the 6-paths so their hard work isn't forgotten, and the people who agree that there should be more reset requirements for the rinnegan also get what they want. Yes, this will most likely be annoying to the user who has an account that only has for example two resets in the paths and nothing else. But should full access of the rinnegan really be given to someone who only has two resets total?
As for pirated eyes, I still say that the person who steals someone's activated rinnegan eyes (who had already completed the x8 reset requirement) are still unable to use them unless they are at least x4 reset in either hyouton/mokuton. This can be linked to the fact that apparently Nagato was able to use the rinnegan despite not having uchiha genetics implanted in him.
TL;DR
- Rinnegan is OP and should require more prerequisites
- It's not fair to ban already reset Hyuuga/Hyouton users from using the path's full potential
- Instead of requirements being specifically Uchiha (x4)+ Senju (x4), the prerequisites can any combination of Hyuuga/Uchiha + Moku/Hyou as long as there there is a total of 8 resets of this combination.
- Pirated rinnegan can only be stolen from someone who had already unlocked the rinnegan via 8 resets, and can only be used if the new obtainer's account is at least at a level 4 elemental KG.