I think this could be useful. Choosing to add a minimum increase button with a minimum increase amount is a viable option. Although, considering this can be abused, there might or should also be a way to secure the minimum increase maximum. Here's the example for clarification:

Put a horse up for auction, starting bid: $1

Choose minimum increase check-box.

Fill in minimum increase amount: $100,000

Thus whoever bids second that's not paying attention, will find themselves paying quite a bit of bits (or ingots). I could suggest a maximum increase amount of between 10% and maybe as much as 50% of the starting bid amount. So then it will look a bit like this (maximum amount):

Put a horse up for auction, starting bid: $1000

Choose minimum increase check-box.

Fill in minimum increase amount: $500

Anyway, for now: Support.

Yes, I think that either it would have to pre-fill the bid amount and give you an 'are you sure?' box (like retireing does) 

Or the minimum bid increase would have to be standard for all auctions (which is what I'm partial to) since I don't think the $1 increase is fair to bidder or to sellers.

I agree with a minimum increase being added but disagree with setting a max amount you are willing to pay to auto-bid an auction as I feel wealthy players could overuse that option especially when it comes to game created auctions that feature rare colors/patterns on horses.

Agree with Raine, in that the minimum bid size needs to fit the value of the merchandise but the autobid would be very exploitable.

Had another idea that might work instead:

After adding a bid (whatever the amount) The time in auction could automatically make sure the auction won't expire for another 12 hours. This would allow the other bidders time to log in and decide if they want to increase their bids. 

Thoughts?

But wouldn't making sure the auction time doesn't expire for 12 hours just create a never ending cycle?

Say if someone outbid somone and then the timer goes for 12 hours and then there is another counter offer would the time then reset again for 12 hours? 

Just seems like it could create an ongoing cycle where the auction never ends!

I’d love it if there was a minimum bid that was proportional to the current highest bid, maybe something around 10% to the nearest hundred. In the past I’ve auctioned credits and found it irritating when it got into the millions and people were increasing their bids by literally 1.

On other games I've seen people implement snipe guards so the auction end time increases if bids are placed within say the last 30 minutes. On ebay it used to be popular having a program that would bid for you like 3 seconds before the auction ended so people didn't have a chance to counter, great for buyers looking for a bargain but sellers wouldn't achieve the best price. It's also useful for people that live in different time zones, I can't tell you how many auctions I've lost as bidding has gone right up to the end finishing at 3am my time. I don't know if the auctions here are competitive enough to need this though.

Auctions don't go on indefinitely as eventually you reach the absolute max price someone is willing to pay. Same with having an auto-bid, people aren’t going to bid more than they think something is worth, I’m not sure how it would be exploitive. 

Yes! RL bidding happens in the moment, right now the end time could literally be in the middle of the night for you and you just have to hope no one enters $1 more to the bid while you're sleeping.

Eventually the highest bid someone is willing to pay will get placed an the 12 hour cycle will wind down and the person willing to pay the best price to the seller will be the winner. 

I've lost several auctions during the night where I've been the highest bidder for days. 

Having an automatic counter-extender could be useful. Right now there are only so many auctions running. But if we get thousands of players? How many would be extended?

Personally I like the idea and having a 12-hour extender; it feels about right (even though I'm almost never on at the same time! 😆).

But on another front, that horse stays with the seller until the auction finishes. How long will that take? And how long is too long? How many years will that horse age? There are a number of variables that this does affect, or can affect.

I think, if the 12-hour extender (or any extender) is put into place, then it should only be extended an X amount of times. Plus, I think the extender should only be activated within an hour of close. So, for the last hour of any auction, if a bid comes in, only then that 'late bid' should activate the extender. Or even with less time, maybe the last 30 minutes.

I don't think the extender is a bad idea. But I think there should be further limits applied if such a thing is added, after all, we're playing a game, this isn't real life or real life bidding. 🙂

I think extending the auction time would be nice. As for the ageing of the horse: Maybe horses that will be auctioned off could be frozen?

That might even have some advantages to the system rn. Because in normal sales, I see the horse as it is now, and decide if I want to pay that price. But what if at the time I bid on an auction a 20-year old mare is not on breeding cooldown, but she gets bred to before the auction ends? Or maybe a horse of a rare breed gets a straw pulled, after I placed my bid.