Crater

The main issue I see with a system like that is that it'd either be too profitable, or not worth it at all. Plus, you'd end up with groups of players out on the ocean with hardly anything to do, nowhere to go, separated from the rest of the roleplay that's going on. Sure, you could have some opportunities for passive conversation and such on the boat as well as the occasional accident/problem, but it'd get pretty stale pretty quickly I think.

I think it'd strip the system of some variety, but you're right that it would be cool. The issue would be designating areas in which you can catch certain fish, and you'd have a hard time implementing any sort of scarcity system. It's possible there's a way to implement something that I haven't thought of though that could accomplish that. Could be cool.

That's both good and bad, I suppose. I support the focus on more roleplay-sided jobs, but there could be a way to mix the two in a meaningful way. Mechanics are currently a good example that forces something typically script-based to have somewhat substantial roleplay go along with it. Maybe adding some incentive for restaurants/businesses to buy different types of fish could work. Only employees of the shop could have access to the "catch of the day" list that I mentioned, and fish couldn't be sold otherwise (to fit with the new anti-RPG standard). I did have it in mind when writing this to only allow rods/bait/lures to only be purchasable at a tackle store, which would have to be manned by a player in a similar way to how Ammunation and mechanic garages currently work. Hopefully the new change doesn't completely make the original post irrelevant, but I guess we'll see.

Bump, plus I fixed a couple issues on the post and the spreadsheet.

That's a good point, there are definitely areas where more is necessary. In situations when entire roleplay scenarios depend on your knowledge of a certain set of rules, laws, precedent, et cetera - I can see where that's valuable for sure. Get a basic understanding of the differences between the knowledge you possess and the knowledge your character might possess, and figure out what you think might actually be useful to influence the narrative or do your job correctly. For sure. I think making shit up on the spot when it's important is probably worse than anything I described in my original post. Either keep it vague or know your shit - don't make things up or pull it from your own country in order to "fill the gap." Claiming that your character knows something when you don't is fine - keep it vague, if needed ask for help on the specifics, or research beforehand if it's important to the story. Claiming that you as a player know something when you clearly don't is horrible and cringey.

Crater's Amazing, Extravagant Guide to Building a Better Fishing System 1. Intro (Apologies in advance for not following the pre-defined format, but I'm sure you can see why (just by the size of this post alone) why it's not necessary. I saw the Drug/Addiction suggestion and figured it's okay.) The fishing system right now is pretty bland, could definitely use some work. It works for what it is, but it could be better - possibly even opening up new avenues for actual roleplay rather than the script-based Netflix-assisted grindfest it is right now. This is going to be very long and very detailed. I'm hoping that makes it more likely to be implemented, and not the other way around. This is also looks very complicated. I promise it's not, I'm just making sure all the bases are covered and ensuring that this is well thought-out and easy to implement for the devs. Hopefully I'm actually effective at doing that. I suck at C# and JS, but these suggestions are pretty simple to implement in terms of typical object-oriented programming logic, from what I do know. I think. Given that the server probably uses some variant of MySQL and already has similar systems in place already that I'm going to use as examples later in this post (like the garbage truck system), code can be stolen from other parts of the script to make the necessary changes that I'm going to elaborate on in this post. Probably. Sorry devs if I'm throwing you under the public's bus with this post - it will take a good bit of tedious work, but it's definitely do-able and I'm not asking you to do the impossible by any means, I hope. 1. Area Differences/Types/New Stats This is pretty simple. The different areas around the island should have different yields, types of fish, et cetera. This doesn't have to be per location, but instead could be just a simple divide between freshwater/saltwater. For the purposes of this post I'll detail my suggestions for each location individually, but if the devs/management deem it too detailed then that's okay. There are only three fishing spots currently, so it shouldn't be hard to implement, but I'll also suggest some modifications to that as well. Take or leave whatever part of that you'd like. The spreadsheet will show you everything, and if you still have questions you can use the rest of this post to answer them, hopefully. 2. Scarcity Many people are probably wondering how a fleshed out, improved fishing system won't tank the economy - right? Well, this is how. Partially. Based on different aspects of the location, the fishing spot will have a population of fish. This means that if you and your four buddies fish at the same spot for an hour, it'll probably have reduced yield. This could manifest in a couple different ways, but the main idea is that the increased amount of fishing locations should force people to use different ones from time to time. This increases the need for travel around the map, forces people to roleplay in new areas with new people, and allows for a breaking of the monotony. As far as programming logic, this one isn't hard. Take the system that the garbage job currently uses to propagate trash and modify it to apply to fish. I don't know exactly what the script looks like for that, so I'm not sure how exactly it works, but I've noticed that server-side scarcity is already a thing with that job. Another idea (from scratch) would be to run up a counter at each location. Each time a fish is caught, add 1 to a stored integer for that location. Once that integer is greater than the configured fish population value, the spot "runs out" of fish. Then, start a timer (similar to the paycheck timer, but for the server rather than an individual client) that resets the fish pool. Add in some randomly generated numbers to mix things up so people aren't timing the locations on their phones. If you want to get even more detailed, you could actually take each fish's ID and assign stored values to each of them. Probably make it easier with a table/array of some sort. Maybe randomize it, clamping it inbetween a minimum and maximum value. For example, maybe Lake Vinewood has 20-50 river salmon, 60-100 catfish, and 200-300 carp. Each time a fish is caught, change the value. This makes the rarity of the fish much more dynamic and makes it so the entire spot doesn't just run dry all at once. You'd have to keep track of what you're actually catching, because maybe that rare, elusive fish you're looking for has already been all snatched up by your rival fisherman before you got there. Included on the spreadsheet will be some examples of statistics and such that will serve as suggestions themselves as to how the scarcity stats could be implemented, per location. Without some kind of scarcity system, you'll probably end up with a lot of problems. It could work without it, but I think it'd make fishing far to profitable and result in one or two locations being the "favorite," rendering the rest useless. 3. Fish Stats Right now, fish are bland. They don't even have different weights, really - just the illusion of different weight. When you catch a 2000g salmon, you're actually catching four different 500g salmon. Silly, right? Well, no worries - I have a solution! Not doing that. Sarcasm aside, let's get down to brass tacks. The new, improved fish will be pretty cool. The spreadsheet will have more information, probably, but I'll detail what the new fish entail briefly here. Actual Size: Essentially, the new fish will have their own size that isn't just arbitrary or somehow just the same fish multiple times. Each fish will weigh a certain amount in ounces - yes, ounces, not grams, you filthy communists - to represent the size of the fish. The actual weight of the fish item will not change, rather there will be text appended to the fish item. As far as programming goes, this should be fairly simple. Randomize an integer between n1 and n2, with those values being the minimum and maximum weight of the fish in ounces. Append the value to the end of the fish item, as such: "Salmon - 68 oz." As far as the actual item weight in grams, that can either be calculated from the fish's weight OR it could be a flat value based on which fish we're dealing with. Maybe the same weight for all the fish, if you want to be boring. Weight values on my spreadsheet are basically arbitrary, optimized for gameplay/balance of profits rather than balanced toward realism. When I get into the profit calculation, you'll see why. tl;dr more weight = bigger fish = probably more money, dude Rarity: This will stay pretty much the same, except you'll have five tiers instead of three. Very Common, Common, Uncommon, Rare, and Very Rare. use my color codes, devs - they're very nice ? As far as the programming for this goes, it's fairly simple but it's contingent on which system of scarcity is implemented. Ideally, it would go as follows, with the "finite amount" system: John Doe casts his line. After a few seconds, he gets a bite. At this point, you roll percentage, just a 100 sided die basically. These don't have to be the final numbers, but this is a very simple example and I'm sure something like this already exists on the server for the current system. 1-40=Very Common (40%) 41-70=Common (30% 70-85=Uncommon (15%) 86-95=Rare (10%) 96-100=Very Rare (5%) Once it's decided what category you're pulling from, you select a fish from that rarity category at random. The weight is determined randomly, as well. Then the guy tries to catch the fish. If he succeeds, one of that type of fish is removed from the pool at that location. Environment: Basically just tells you whether it's freshwater or saltwater. This doesn't even have to be a programmed thing on each item, because it'll be built into the locations themselves, I think. Easy. Catch Chance: This is where things get fun. You don't get free catches anymore. Some fish are harder to catch than others, my friend. Ideally, this will be based on the rarity of the fish as well as its average weight. Rarer the fish, harder it is to catch. Frustrating? Probably. Fair? Yes. I've proposed what this stuff would look like in detail, and the devs are free to use this if they implement anything resembling this post. (Work in progress on the amount section, but you get the idea) You'll notice some new locations on here, I get into those toward the end of the post. The Reel Big Spreadsheet 4. Fish Gear Yep. Gear. There are three categories: rod, bait, and lure. These should be pretty self explanatory if you've ever done any real fishing or have heard of fishing before. If you want to make things WAY better and create a bit of roleplay, add a shop type that sells these upgrades and make it so you can only buy stuff from them when players are manning the store. I haven't fully worked out specific details on these, but essentially the combination of the three items will provide different bonuses. These are some examples: ($100) Old Rod: Basic, allows you to fish for Very Common and Common fish. ($1,000) Good Rod: Allows you to catch Uncommon and Rare fish. ($5,000) Super Rod: Allows you to catch Very Rare fish. Bait (is consumed when a fish is on the line, whether you succeed in catching it or not): ($50) Worm: Increases your chance of finding longer fish. ($10) Fly: Increases your chance of finding shorter fish. ($100) Chum: Increases your chance of finding rarer fish. ($1,000) Rubber Lure: Increases your chance to catch by 5% ($10,000) Weighted Lure: Increases your chance to catch by 10% ($25,000) Realistic Lure: Increases your chance to catch by 20% ...and so on. You could go a couple steps further and add stuff like different types of fishing line, possibly other upgrades. Keep it simple or go all out, that's up to the devs. 5. How the Hell Do I Fish?/Which Commands Need to Be Added? This is pretty simple, given what you know already from reading the rest of the post (which I'm sure you did, without skipping through any bits). The old command would need to be thrown out, pretty much. You'd still do /fish, but you'd have to configure your options before you start otherwise you can't fish. Without proper gear, you can't do shit, basically. So, what you're going to need is the following: /setbait <inventory item index> /setrod <inventory item index> /setlure <inventory item index> Then you can do /fish. Those commands should be self explanatory, but in case you're confused: You're setting the bait that you're going to use, setting which rod you're going to use, and setting which kind of lure you're going to use. This uses the same item indices that you use to equip weapons, put items into vehicles, et cetera. If the devs have a better way to do this, they're welcome to, obviously. This seems pretty simple to me though. 6. I'm Fishing. Now What? Basically, here's what happens. You've got your rod, your bait, and your lure all set. You've typed the magical /fish command. Suddenly, a fish starts to nibble on your line. You then type /cf or /catchfish, just like before - but you're also presented with a percentage chance. This is determined by the rarity of the fish and the equipment you're using. A pair of dice is rolled and weighed against your odds, and you either catch the fish or you don't. It's that simple. Devs, a note here: since the largest fish weigh 1500g, make sure the script notifies the player when they've got 1499 or less free space remaining in their inventory. No one wants to miss out on the catch of their life because of inventory space. 7. I Fished. Now What? Well, you want something for your work, right? I've got you covered. It's a little complicated, though, at least on the back end. For you it'll be pretty simple. You've got the old option, although I think the sell locations should be mixed up. I'll leave that up to the devs and the admins because it's not really important. Anyways - old option: You arrive at the location, you sell your fish, you get an amount of money based on the type of fish you caught. Pretty simple. The new formula would take into account the weight of the fish, and that's it. Pretty simple. Since the weight of the fish scales with the rarity and difficulty of catching it, you end up with a system that pays the most for the rarest fish, but you also get rewarded if you luck out and catch a MASSIVE (albeit not very rare) fish. There's a new option, though, too. If you've ever used the car chopping menu at faction garages (but why would you? you're an upstanding citizen!) you'll be familiar with this concept. I like this one a lot. Essentially, I'm proposing a "Catch of the Day" feature that allows you to get more buck for your bang. Restaurants, or maybe just the place where you sell your fish, will have a daily (hourly? six-hourly? whatever) list of fish that they desire. If you get them that specific fish, you get double the money you'd normally get for that fish. They're picky though, so they'll look at not only the species of fish, but also the weight of the fish. The list randomizes every time it reloads, so you'll usually end up with a different list with different sized (and species'd) fish. If the devs want, they can implement a range of length, a precise length, or a minimum length (or all three, for different difficulty) that the requested fish must be. Mix this system with the scarcity of fish at certain locations, and the availability at certain locations, and you'll have fish fights left and right in no time. Roleplay created, bam. If you thought mining bodyguards were too far, just wait until the Salmon Wars start. 8. New Fishing Locations There's a lot of unused near-aquatic space on the map. This section fixes that, hopefully. Chumash Type: Saltwater Notes: Good view, next to a gas station and a boat shop (I think). Close enough to the city but far enough to get people out of the big spots. Issues: Could have issues due to being next to "LS Adventures," but if anything I think they'd enjoy the publicity of having a fishing spot right next to their shop. Image + Coords: Catfish View Type: Saltwater Notes: Nice place, not much to say about it. Will be good for the Sandy Shores/Grapeseed scenes. Issues: None that I can see. Image + Coords: Alamo Sea Type: Freshwater? Saltwater? Who knows. Notes: If we're following GTAV's lore, this lake probably doesn't even have anything living in it because it's toxic as fuck and super salty. If we want to sorta... Retcon that, or maybe play with it a bit, it'll be a useful fishing spot and give some competition to the existing fishing spot at Zancudo River. Issues: See above. Image + Coords: Land Act Reservoir Type: Freshwater Notes: Pretty nice place here, actually. Large lake, nice outcropping to fish from. Issues: The tiny river near the central-western entrance to the landing gives motorcycles lots of engine issues, just barely. There are other, safer entrances to the landing further north, but the dangerous entrance is the closest one to Los Santos. Image + Coords: Lake Vinewood Type: Freshwater Notes: Good location, not a whole lot of area (volume?) on this one. Check the spreadsheet for how that might affect things. Also, there are two docks like the one I took the screenshot on - could use the second one instead (or both!) Issues: I'm actually not sure if more managed reservoirs like this are populated with fish. From what little I googled some are, so take that or leave it. Image + Coords: Lago Zancudo Type: Freshwater Notes: Swampy and out of the way. Much smaller fishing area, on a small dock, but could realistically be placed anywhere near this location. Issues: None, other than maybe the lack of a road that leads directly to the dock. It's just off the road, though, so I don't see that being a big issue. Image + Coords: Cassidy Creek Type: Freshwater Notes: Cool location, close to the main western highway so it could bring some additional activity to the nearby northwestern areas. Issues: It's really close to Paleto Cove, an existing fishing spot. Could remove that one in place of this, it's much nicer. I included both on the spreadsheet. Image + Coords: Paleto Bay Pier Type: Saltwater Notes: Right next to Paleto Bay, an area that could probably use some more player activity. Issues: One of the bridges to access it is busted, but it's still accessible from the southwest - where most people will be coming from. Image + Coords: ?. FAQ/Possible Issues ...Why? Fishing is cool, and deserves much better than what's currently integrated (no offense to the current system and those who made it). Games like Harvest Moon, Animal Crossing, and others have very nice systems for this sort of thing that are actually really fun to use while also making you some money on the side. On top of that, right now fishing is basically just a grind that gets you some extra cash. Imagine being able to make an actual fisherman (fisherwoman? fisherperson?) character that has some gameplay implications to back it up, while also not wanting to claw your eyes out from boredom. Won't this destroy the economy?/Isn't this too profitable?/I hate money Probably not. There are careful means in place in this guide to specifically prevent that from happening. If you don't understand how they work exactly, read this post again with this question in mind. Having a more fun fishing system means more people will want to do it, probably, so in that case - more people will be making more money. I don't think that's a bad thing, since everyone can do it equally and there are MUCH better ways to make money on the server once you get going. Why are some of the gear prices so unrealistically expensive? Basically, the same reason guns are so expensive. Because they're valuable and should have some work given toward them to acquire them. You gotta spend money to make money, and some of those items can make you a boatload of money. Literally. Why are there fish species on the table that aren't found in California/Los Angeles? Simplicity and neatness. I could go through and find every single fish you can catch in California, maybe even in the Los Angeles area, but not only would that take a lot of time - it would also kinda suck. The fish names start to get very regional, with colored variants and other varaints, and very boring. I prefer to have individual, short, memorable names for fish, and I'm sure the devs probably prefer that too. If you want to amend my list with area-accurate fish, be my guest, but I think you'll be wasting your time. also it's really because most if not all of the fish are actually stolen from various animal crossing wiki pages and the folks at Nintendo ALSO don't give a fuck where the fish come from because it's a fictional setting Why didn't you include boat fishing? Everyone loves boat fishing. As cool as it would be, boat fishing would have to be super profitable otherwise no one would ever do it - and if it were super profitable, everyone would do it. There are no ways I can think of to implement something like that without it being either 1) a pain in the ass, 2) incredibly profitable, 3) boring as fuck, or 4) all of the above. So it stays un-included. It's simpler this way, trust me. Let's work on making land fishing fun and interesting before we go involving boat fishing in the mess. Won't this make fishing the coolest job period, other than MAYBE roleplay jobs or mechanic? Probably, but I don't think that's really a problem. I'd rather have one really cool job than have a bunch of bland ones. But if you want, I'll just overhaul the other ones too. Fuck it. If that's what it takes to get good fishing, that's what I'll do. Seriously. This is where we start, though, because it's easy and it's fun.

@Conway I get where you're coming from, but I fail to see how certain details add any value to the roleplay. To use your example - the military vet - there's some actual value in doing some research there. It's part of your character's history, maybe a large portion of your character's life depending on how long they were in the armed forces. It helps to know that, because it's pertinent to who that character is. Knowing the exact process (or implementing a process longer than maybe three to five lines) is not part of who your character is. It adds nothing to the character, nothing to the roleplay, and nothing to any overall story being told. If you can think of examples when the opposite is true, please let me know. Doing "/me takes a few minutes to disassemble the AR-15 completely." (or maybe something even wordier than that, for detail's sake) is sufficient, compared to several lines about how you're popping pins out, removing the barrel, carefully removing springs, etc. That doesn't mean you have to water everything down to the point of ape-tier knowledge or implement an intentional lack of detail. Add flair, add cleverness, add detail that clarifies and emboldens the mental image of what's happening. Just because you're not fully knowledgeable doesn't mean you have to be boring. That doesn't require knowledge, it requires good writing skills. That's where quality roleplay comes from, not from research or perfect authenticity. If you already have that knowledge, cool. If it's important to who your character is somehow, I guess that's alright too - but I'm simply making a case that it shouldn't be necessary and most definitely should not be expected of a player to do the amount of research required to do what you do. This server is for fun. If you find that detailed research into automotive repair is fun, good on you. If you don't, you shouldn't have to deal with people who look down on you for not knowing the details. You're here to play a character that isn't you, that isn't necessarily 100% realistic/authentic, and more likely than not possesses many skills that you yourself do not possess. That's the bottom line of what I'm saying here.

This is clearly not what I'm talking about, as I mentioned in my post that detailed roleplay that actually adds narrative value should not be excluded. I guess I should have focused in on that a bit more. Finding clues, interviewing characters, et cetera - are all examples of valuable roleplay that should happen. Does this mean you need to research actual legal precedent/case law, interviewing techniques, take a course on psychological ways to interview people? No, I think not. Knowing a lot of things, as well as realism, are not valid attributes of quality roleplay. You're free to disagree with that, but a story being realistic doesn't even begin to make it a good story. In fact, some might argue that the opposite is true. This doesn't mean you should throw realism out the window - I'm just implying that it shouldn't be the focus of your experience. It's not nearly as important as many other values, such as actually having an interesting story to tell and working toward that with other characters around you. Detailed automotive repair knowledge is not interesting to most people, otherwise they'd probably be a mechanic in real life. That's exactly the opposite of what I'm positing, so yeah - no. The point of your character is not what he knows, but rather why/how he knows it and how it affects him as a character. To the value of the story you're trying to tell, "backing up" your knowledge is unimportant. Simply stating that your character would know it is enough, really, which is where vagueness comes in. Not being intentionally uninformed or incorrect (i.e. making shit up) but rather keeping things to a basic, layman's outline. Not only will it save you lots of time and trouble, but you'll accelerate the roleplay and allow other laymen to accept what you're throwing at them in a more palatable way. If you want to ignore/refute all of that, I can also go back to one of my main points: it's not really valuable to the story to know things, just for the sake of knowing them. If that knowledge is actually relevant to some sort of plot device you're trying to create in your characters' backstories or their actions, then it becomes relevant for you to know that. 99% of the time though, precise, technical knowledge is not part of that category. This part I entirely agree with. Including people in the roleplay you're doing is incredibly valuable, as you already know, and leads to more connections, more avenues to roleplay in the future, etc. as you've already explained. However, I do want to point out that all of this is possible without detailed technical knowledge. If someone complains that you aren't being detailed enough (and I can't imagine many people who would) then as you say, that's wholly their own problem. Gatekeeping those who don't want to spend hours of research in real-life topics that have no value to them outside of roleplaying on a game server is a ridiculous thing to do, in my estimation. If you enjoy it, more power to you - but you'll save time and increase the quality of roleplay if you leave out unnecessary details, explanations, and terminology.

Hi. I'm relatively new here, but I figured I might be able to contribute a little bit by providing an argument that will save a lot of people time and make the server a better place overall. You're free to offer counterarguments or add to this as much as you like, I'm just putting it out for the community to judge and hopefully absorb. Something I've noticed in my short time here is the amount of unnecessary roleplay, especially during player-driven or player-created jobs. Some might say, "How can roleplay be unnecessary?" or "The more detail the better!" but I really don't think that's the case. Let me start with a definition of roleplay to begin, so we can at least get a base understanding of what I'm talking about conceptually. Roleplay is, obviously, playing a role. You're fitting yourself into a character that (usually) isn't like you, playing a role that is unlike you in at least one way, but most likely many ways. More precisely, when dealing with roleplay servers (whether GTA-based or otherwise) you're typically trying to tell a collaborative story. It's the narrative, the interactions between characters, and the things that happen server-wide that make it interesting. If you agree with that definition (and it's by no means all-encompassing, just a brief description) then hopefully you'll agree with my main point which is as follows: you don't need to be the thing you're roleplaying as, have all the knowledge that your character would, or wholly simulate what you're doing to its full extent in order to play your character or their occupation properly. As I said earlier, this phenomenon is most prevalent in roleplay-based jobs. I've seen it happen a lot in mechanic shops, specifically. A customer comes in, is usually handed a catalog detailing many things that they can purchase, and then after the player decides what they want the mechanic goes to work. With many auto mechanics (and this isn't limited to mechanics, just using it as an example as it's a common interaction) they will explain what they're doing in excruciating detail. This is where things get unnecessary. You don't need to understand where or even what an alternator is to roleplay a mechanic properly. It adds nothing additional to the story of either character. The customer certainly gains nothing through that interaction any more than they would gain from a simple "/me applies the chosen upgrades and paint selection chosen by the customer." or even several /me commands detailing a couple things they asked for, in perfectly acceptable vagueness. To the extent of adding to the story, you really only need to include details that are directly valuable to the story. Anything else is basically just an ego stroke, claiming to the world "look what I know!" One could claim you're striving for realism, but this isn't a server that's focused on realism as far as I know - it's focused on narrative and character interaction. Realism doesn't really provide anything of value to anyone, unless you're talking about a realistic outcome between two characters or what's realistically feasible in a certain situation (dodging bullets, for example, would be something that someone might deny on the basis of realism). Defying reality is something to object to, but I also think being too realistic is something that plagues a lot of people's roleplay. I've seen really bad cases of this phenomenon too, to the extent that a line of someone's dialogue had a "[1]" in it, clearly copy/pasted from a Wikipedia article. Clearly not everyone is that bad and some people do know what they're talking about, but I'd wager that over 90% of people that play mechanics on the server are not mechanics in real life. They don't need to be. People that look down on others for not providing a super realistic, super accurate, and super detailed job are essentially gatekeepers that actually dissuade people from playing a character that they'd otherwise enjoy playing. Be vague, when vagueness is acceptable. No one will look down on you for it (and if they do they're actively keeping you from actually enjoying the server without doing a ton of research, and should be cast out). I get that people want to impress people with all their knowledge, but it's basically a circlejerk at that point and actually begins to detract from the storytelling. If you enjoy the expansive knowledge of your character's occupation and want it to be as real as possible - okay, but understand that others may not be as enthusiastic as you are about those topics. You have to realize that - nine times out of ten - it's not really going to provide any narrative value to either character. You don't need to prove your character's knowledge to anyone, ever - that's part of the fun of actually playing a role that's dissimilar to yourself in real life. I didn't proofread this and wrote it in a rush, so if there are mistakes or incoherent parts then that's on me, but I hope I got my point across. If you disagree with most or all of this, cool - let me know why, because I'm totally willing to be proven wrong. tl;dr if it's not of value to the overall or personal narrative and won't really provide anything of value to your readers (those around you when you say/perform things), it's probably best to simplify whatever it is you're saying/doing