The Myth of Mining

[Ahana]

Appeal to authority (whether it be you claiming it's you, or that you 'asked an expert') is a logical fallacy, just fyi. :[

That was not appeal to authority - you clipped what they responded to, where the poster instructed them to "take an economics class".

[GlobalVariable]

Reasons to fetch your own mats if you comprehend opportunity cost:

• when you can't otherwise get the item you need to finish the synth
• when you can collapse inventory/AH slots by way of allowing you to sell through more total gil value per day. Ore doesn't stack for example, but ingot does...But this is also a fairly lousy example because ingots won't really sell fast enough to make you more total gil in the same time as selling the ore.

Those 2 conditions aren't common, so I avoid wasting my time mining. It is faster to buy what I need and make the money back elsewhere than to spend the hours to get the materials.

[Coephoros]

Technically, the situation you're describing isn't "opportunity cost". It's just selling junk for less than it cost you to make it. Opportunity cost describes, for example, the 5K in gil you didn't get selling materials because you invested it in skilling up. Using 5K of materials to synth materials that you sell for 3K is just a 2K loss.

[blowfin]

They all say that the only loss is time and time doesn't have any qualitative cost unless one is imposed upon it.

Thats the thing though, this game really does impose a cost on your time.

That cost is the money you could be making elsewhere.

[annewandering]

People complain crafting is dead. They complain because they cant find materials in AH. They complain that they cant find low and mid level gear in AH.
Could one reason be that people are told that crafting is a gil sink and its a waste of time? It is a waste if people dont even try.

[Sparthos]

As it stands, crafting is a waste of time.

The best gear all comes from Abyssea and gil is worthless. Short of wanting to sign stuff or make consumables, crafting really has no use in a world where everything drops completed from NMs.

To tell someone to start a craft would be to knowingly set them up for a huge timesink with no real reward.

[blowfin]

As it stands, crafting is a waste of time.

The best gear all comes from Abyssea and gil is worthless. Short of wanting to sign stuff or make consumables, crafting really has no use in a world where everything drops completed from NMs.

To tell someone to start a craft would be to knowingly set them up for a huge timesink with no real reward.

If you're talking about Synthesis in particular, and on it's own, then that's probably true short of riding the consumables market. I've never crafted "big ticket" items so i'm no authority in that area. Regardless, Synergy is well worth levelling at the moment and you really do want some supporting crafts levelled for it. The most obvious being alchemy so you can make your own fewell, which will cut your overhead immensely. Then you can pick and choose what other crafts you want depending on what you want to make.

[Flunklesnarkin]

As it stands, crafting is a waste of time.

The best gear all comes from Abyssea and gil is worthless. Short of wanting to sign stuff or make consumables, crafting really has no use in a world where everything drops completed from NMs.

To tell someone to start a craft would be to knowingly set them up for a huge timesink with no real reward.

Or it would be smart business ;o

crafted items may not always be useless.. great armor and stuff might come about by 99

It could be a smart investment to buck the trends and get your crafts up while its cheap...

I always listen to people complaining about how they should have bought this or that while it was cheap...

well here's you chance.. crafting is useless atm and everything is dirt cheap.. go level it

[AtrixWolfe]

I feel this does not put into perspective the rate at which you sell which is a sincerely important part of the equation. As you all know you have a maximum number of slots on the AH. And iirc most ores sell single not stack. And 4 ores make an ingot. Meaning potentially depending on differences in move rates, you can sell ingots at 48x the rate as you can sell ores. Making crafting them not a myth! Too one must take into consideration that the number of people who can mine < the number of people who can craft. Making your goods possibly more rare, and also they are more useful as they are used in more recipes, I hope this is some way debunks it. It also saves inventory space to be able to craft as you mine!

[Catsby]

Back when crafting was still relevant there were too many crafting items that were used in only 1 recipe. If you combine that with the fact that anybody could take up a trade skill and most crafted goods could be sold again and again on the AH it's no wonder why crafting turned out the way it did. If more of the items in the game had to go through more recipes to get to their end results, more items bound to players after being used and more salvage like turn in trials existed we would probably have a more exciting economy.