Auction this time had some problems, in my opinion. The cost of players had more to do with what stage of the auction they were locked in at than actual skill level. In part, this was because of rules encouraging players not to bid on a variety of players, or not to bid at all, which prevented any kind of natural economy from building up, and in part, it was because the lock in started far too early. It's worth noting that there were several rules that encouraged Gens not to bid, and nothing that encouraged bidding. Some examples:
Lock in:
Gens didn't want to bid because they wanted to make sure other Gens didn't get a bargain locked in. They wanted to make sure they had a slot or two open at the end of day to prevent this. As stated earlier, I think the lock in started far too early this War. Would like to see this used as a last resort to end the auction, not as the main mechanic.
Bidding on 15 players max:
Pretty obvious. The main reason we saw some players shoot up to 1k+ prices while players like Jenkar remained without a bid. Once a General bid on someone, they made an investment - bidding on another player instead of just raising would make you less flexible later in the auction. Would really like to see this removed. It's not beneficial in any way, in my opinion.
Can only have 4 winning bids at a time:
I wouldn't change this, but I did want to mention it for the sake of completeness.
Next time, I'd really like to see some rules encouraging bidding. Maybe something along the lines of:
"Generals who do not place 5/6/7/8 bids in a day have their minimum raise permanently increased by 30/40/50/60. Generals who have had a full team for over 4 hours total that day are exempt from this rule."
I'm sure someone can come up with something better than that. But I think it's the direction the auction needs to head in.
I'd still prefer auction to draft.