Quote Originally Posted by Gyson View Post
While I disagree with the auction suggestion, snipe bidding only works when people are attempting to be cheap.

If you bid the maximum amount you're willing to pay you'll never lose because a bid was "sniped". And by "lose" I mean this: if the maximum you're willing to pay is 1000 gil, and someone bids 1001 gil at the last second, then you didn't lose because of *how* they bid, but rather because they were simply willing to pay more than you were. Whether they bid 1001 gil a second before the auction ended or weeks before it ended would be irrelevant if you're not willing to go over 1000 gil - you lost because they were willing to pay more, not because of timing. And if you were willing to pay 1002, that's what you should have bid to start off with (particularly if the auctions uses a smart bid system (like ebay)).
If someone is willing to bid 4 million gil, they're willing to bid 4 million and 1 gil. Auction sniping is a real issue no matter how you spin it, the only solution is to have it so you have to outbid someone by a certain percentage, say 20%. Regardless of that, I think the auction idea is awful, saved gil for over a year doing things you enjoyed for a small house when they eventually become available? That's too bad, as a crafter with hundreds of millions gil will outbid you with more than you can make in 5 years of casual play (not taking into account gil inflation). Just seems like a suggestion that favours one kind of player over the other "That player bought the house first, that's unfair, it should have been a bid system so I could have outbid them with my immense wealth". Both are awful systems due to the limited demand, but one puts all players on equal footing while the other favours the richer players.