Is there a trick to the auction stalls in SV or is it just random. Or, worse, is it impossible to actually get a "good" deal
Like I'm looking at this Bottle Cap x5 for 50k starting, as an example, and the first bid was 70k and it kept going past 100 at which point i just reset since it's objectively a worse deal at that point. They're all like this.
Oh, I did some testing on this the other night! As far as I can tell, if you save before the auction and soft reset, the prices that get the NPC competitors to dip out are the same every time (which also means the price you can buy it for is the same every time), no matter what kind of strategy you use. Essentially the feature boils down to "random deal at a semirandom but predetermined price," and the mini game is just a layer to obscure it so you don't know what you're getting into upfront, not actually a way to influence the price.
It seems like the intended, uh, "reading?" of the different strategies is that choosing to pass for a round makes the price go up more slowly ("reward") but forces an autolose if another NPC dips out at the same time and there's only one competitor left ("risk")... but the end result price is the same any time you actually end up being the "last one standing," so there's no advantage at all
except maybe making an NPC happier.
On the other hand, raising the price more quickly
seemed like it was supposed to be a tool to "scare" NPCs out of bidding higher, but... I kept getting exactly the same final price no matter which option I picked each round - I tried once doing the lower option every time, once doing the higher option and once alternating between the two, and I paid the exact same final price each time (in my case it was exactly 213,500 for 23 HP Ups over several tests, valued at 230,000 in stores).
I dunno if I was missing anything, but I was never able to get the final price to vary and I assume that's not a real element of the feature.
I think they maybe just forgot that Bottle Caps could be bought in stores? because in general it seems like the price range for buyable items is
supposed to be lower than their store prices, while the price range for stuff like Berries that you can't buy in bulk any other way is understandably higher than the minimal prices they have when the player sells them... but I was also getting weirdly inflated prices for Bottle Caps that were just worse than buying from Delibird every time.
I've been getting totally-worthwhile deals for insane quantities of stuff like EV-reducing Berries, I'm pretty sure different kinds of Poké Balls can have low-ish bulk prices, and I've heard of other items like Apricorn Balls and Gold Bottle Caps that can't be purchased in stores, but some combination of the random price ranges and lack of player influence definitely means that not every auction is worth pursuing to begin with.