Legion still sucks.

1) Opportunity cost is subjective, 2) I doubt you'd get 20M for either scroll, 3) if Return1 is to be believed, people don't waste anytime idling in Port Jeuno waiting on PUGs (read: they do), 4) I personally wouldn't chase the scroll any more than regular events in my shell, and 5) Vortex got very lucky and is to be congratulated, and at least spent her time doing something more interesting than farming Dynamis.

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Originally Posted by Raksha

He's probably talking about opportunity cost.

You lose 20M by using the scroll instead of selling it etc. etc.

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it's a little sad people need that explained, but if FFXI players (other than pchan, hilariously) actually understood opportunity cost the game would probably have to shut down

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Camiie sez time is money, friend!

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This is the distilled essence of everything pchan posts on these boards, and while it leads to the uncontroversial opinions I take such pleasure in seeing people work themselves in knots trying to debunk, I do think he takes it to an extreme (ADL ALL DAY EVERY DAY) that is somewhat self-defeating in the context of a video game meant to be a pleasant waste of time.

At any rate, we end up back where I started: you pay 20 million (or 10 million, or some other very significant sum) for the privilege of covering for jackasses that forgot to bring Reraise. THAT MIGHT BE WORTH IT TO YOU, but it's an objectively indefensible position.

Leading economists disagree.

https://www.google.com/search?source....0.DUCcp-r9ibk

Yes, time is money. Opportunity cost can be subjective. Only the chooser can determine the most attractive alternative for itself from its special point of view. We each have a different list of things valued in decline from top to bottom due to our different aims of life, philosophy, etc. Even for the same activity or good or service, different individuals take it with different opportunity cost.

EDIT: You edited your prior comment. Doubtless you understood that I wasn't saying there isn't an opportunity cost, just that it differs for people. You can't pass judgment on the list of things from top to bottom someone who uses the scroll has. They just differ from YOUR goals.

EDIT2: Already said it did more than your listed function. Nothing objectively indefensible about it.

No, leading economists disagree that opportunity cost is always static for each person, which is what they mean when they say "subjective". If you could get somebody to pay 15 million for a scroll of Arise and you know that you could do that the moment you click it to learn the spell, your opportunity cost is 15 million. Subjectivity doesn't apply here because we know exactly what somebody else will pay us for the item in question.

In fact, the subjectivity of opportunity costs is frequently discussed in the context of depreciation of the value of goods, which in this case, dealing with a hot ticket, brand new spell that we can be reasonably assured will only get cheaper and may get dramatically cheaper very quickly if it shows up in other events, makes keeping it while it's worth so much even dumber.

What you are arguing is that sometimes people attach sentimental value to things unrelated to economic costs, which I totally agree with, but betrays a core underlying premise of economics as a whole (and why I believe a lot of economics are on rather shaky ground intellectually, for what it's worth), which is that people behave as rational economic actors. I'm not opposed to discussing economics on this board but if you aren't going to start with that premise, doing so is pretty pointless.

Isn't that another way of stating what I said? As I said in my edit above, I wasn't saying there isn't an opportunity cost, just that it differs for people.

If you are using the sell-while-high doctrine, you could also argue that the scroll itself is languishing in bazaars across servers, and then you have to factor in the subjective value of the difference in value to you over using the scroll then and there, and waiting 3, 4, 5 months (?) for the scroll to fall down perhaps a few million in price while you went without the benefit.

Moral of the story: one man's trash is another man's treasure?

You said the opportunity cost was "subjective"; in this case, it is not, because people spend 20 million gil on this scroll all the time.

Or not, maybe. I concede on reflection that since sales are carried out via Bazaar there's no way for us to track what people are actually buying it for. If it needs to be lower, and, say, 15 million were a more appropriate price, the opportunity cost would be 15 million. Still quite a bit more than the utility of the spell is worth, which I stand by because you've already admitted it's pretty useless.

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If you are using the sell-while-high doctrine, you could also argue that the scroll itself is languishing in bazaars across servers, and then you have to factor in the subjective value of the difference in value to you over using the scroll then and there, and waiting 3, 4, 5 months (?) for the scroll to fall down perhaps a few million in price while you went without the benefit.

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There's a difference between understanding economics and being good at sales. At any rate, I was just mentioning that in terms of the concept of subjectivity as generally understood HEAVILY favoring getting rid of a scroll of Arise or Meteor as quickly as possible, right now.

Yes, as the subjective theory goes, opportunity-cost decisions are the subjective valuations of individuals. It can be seen as "the rejected subjective plan of an individual—one that is never implemented at all." Viewing it from the endpoint of the individual rather than the start point of the buyer. You are assuming the scroll isn't worth more than 20M to the person using it, that the person does not compare the benefits of having the scroll to the value to other people, or that the person has other goals that would take that 20M.

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Originally Posted by scaevola

If it needs to be lower, and, say, 15 million were a more appropriate price, the opportunity cost would be 15 million. Still quite a bit more than the utility of the spell is worth, which I stand by because you've already admitted it's pretty useless..

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I admitted nothing of the sort. I listed two uses. If you want a third, call it "getting a luxury item". Which isn't denied to people spending 80-100M on upgrading weapons to have a couple more stats (and that opportunity cost), so why deny it to WHM's and BLM's?

No, I am not assuming the scroll isn't worth more than 20 million to the person using it. It clearly is.

What I am assuming is that such a person is a total moron, and one of the cornerstones of economic theory (indeed, again, IMHO one of the weaknesses of classical economics) is that people are not total morons (economists use the term "rational economic actors"), because economists do not have the tools to predict what morons will do.

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Originally Posted by Mahoro

I admitted nothing of the sort. I listed two uses.

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Please list events where people are not reraising themselves. Oh no, I forgot to bring my reraise earring to voidwatch!

Also, while I understand the idea of giving high DDs a leg up on weakness on paper, I am coming up short with any real practical application for it. Any fight where I can imagine getting one person unweakened two minutes quicker would actually matter involves Embrava, so they're screwed anyway.

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If you want a third, call it "getting a luxury item". Which isn't denied to people spending 80-100M on upgrading weapons to have a couple more stats (and that opportunity cost), so why deny it to WHM's and BLM's?

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Like I said, if FFXI players actually understood opportunity cost the game would probably have to shut down.

EDIT: I DO believe there is economic value to luxury items and the value of such items in FFXI weirdly parallels the value they have in the real world; having a 95 Empyrean won't help you get to Floor 100 of Nyzul, for instance, but it will open the door to other people who have 95 Empyreans, which WILL help you, for sure. But then we all remembered this was a video game, and if a 95 Ukon gets you the access of a degree from Harvard Business, a TP Bonus Great Katana is a degree from the University of Michigan Med School.