Night Market Keys.

Romilly · 1:38AM

I don't mind PUGing dungeon finder for keys up to and including Gilded, but there's a real problem. Lets say you're a small guild that wants to run. Your 12 people signup with Gilded, and now one person drops for some reason. Now you don't just need a warm body that can fill, you potentially need to get that person all the keys, including the Gilded. Now, spot the problem? Assuming that person doesn't, that means now you have to run them through the Gilded Dungeons. Except, guess what? None of your 11 people have Argent keys, unless they went to specifically backfill them. So now you have to go and farm Argents in order to get your one fill through a Gilded.

Please, for the love of the 8, please just let Argent keys stay until you clear the Trial, then clean out Argents and Gilded keys. It's making organized trials a logistical pain in the rear. I mean, heaven preserve that someone exploits this to run those boring fights twice or three times.

code65536 · 2:18AM

@ZOS_Finn This key situation also complicates the ability for people to run with multiple groups.

For example, one player in one of my longstanding groups is running Opulent with another longstanding group before my group, which means that their keys are out of sync with ours.

You've done a good job of getting people to group up for district activities, but then you throw up these appalling barriers for the Gilded and Opulent instances.. People should be able to do this content without having to do a census of everyone's key status.

At the very least you should've allowed players to hold multiple copies of a key.

Soarora · 2:46AM

code65536 wrote: »

People should be able to do this content without having to do a census of everyone's key status.

A census indeed... I made a real attempt to do the combat loop as intended (argent -> gilded -> opulent) and it just doesn't work. People don't want to do the gilded over again if they're saving their argent keys for another group and they don't want to fill for opulent if they're saving their gilded key for another group. The overland section is very pro-friendship but the key situation is anti-friendship.

Blood_again · 3:36AM

code65536 wrote: »

People should be able to do this content without having to do a census of everyone's key status.

At the very least you should've allowed players to hold multiple copies of a key.

Having multiple copies is an acceptable but limited solution. Really the very least.
With my approach, I would grind a bit to build up a decent reserve, then relax.
But I know many people whose playtime is really limited. The whole key cycle is a truly time-consuming chore that just eats their playtime with not much fun in return.

"Once opened, run by will" is the way.

Emeratis · 3:42AM

Code and Soarora said everything I came here to say. I am running with multiple guilds/friend groups and key management is making it stressful at best and impossible at worst. While seasoned and endgame guilds can easily do Argent to Opulent Ordeals in a reasonable block of time, learning and more inexperienced groups might not be able to. If an emergency comes up and a player has to last minute drop, it makes it very difficult to fill a run.

In my opinion, keys are causing the most grouping friction and making it just as hard to play with friends/guildies as if factions were locked for grouping. Morale in a few of my guilds and friend groups are tanking over this. @ZOS_Finn, please change the keys to be multiples or make it so after so many reps you get a permanent unlock. I think this needs changed before Night Market 2.0 or it's going to deter a lot of people and that's the last thing I want to see happen since I find the Opulent Ordeal especially to be fun and well designed and I would love to see it more accessible to everyone so they can enjoy it too.

Treeshka · 4:29AM

They should make bosses drop key recipes and the crafting material of it. Then i can farm my brazen and argent bosses and stack up materials.

Ardriel · 5:17AM

Farming they keys ONCE should be enough to permanently unlock the dungeons and trial. Please consider this and change it as soon as possible!

eashi · 5:22AM

code65536 wrote: »

At the very least you should've allowed players to hold multiple copies of a key.

Yes, yes, yes. We should be able to at minimum hold 10 copies of the keys. This would make it easier on people who run in multiple groups, and for smaller guilds since willing fills would be more abundant while not making the overland useless to farm once you have the keys, which I believe was the point of the system in the first place.

The relic system is also somewhat frustrating but at least once someone has it they have it. The keys need to be almost constantly farmed in their current state and it punishes people who lead groups who are doing all of the bosses over and over again while getting almost nothing from them.

Earlier to day I was filling for a OO run since I had all the keys (all argent and dungeons) and someone who was on the roster had to drop. We had 3 people in that group that needed the dungeons. I ended up helping out on my tank. After that we did the trial. I went into this having all of the keys including the back filled argent ones and because I was being helpful I left with no keys at all. This was not a group I normally run with and I will have to re-farm all of the stuff before I run with my other group later this week. The current system actively discourages helping in this way since for some it might mean they no longer can run with the group they signed up for/want to because someone asked them to help and they said yes.

That run earlier ran from about 6:30 ET until 9:00 E. 2.5 hours to do all of that and clear the trial is crazy. Most groups cap their run times at 2 hours max for good reasons. In a less organized group that all would have taken much longer.

heimdall14_9 · 5:39AM

i made i feedback post about this id think a good progression system for the keys would be

1st set you get argent master key ( no longer forced to get for set )
2nd set you get gildeds master key ( no longer forced to get for set )
3rd set youd be free to do whatever activity you want to while not being forced into doing them you dont .....

frogthroat · 6:13AM

Yeah, it is a bit inconvenient. Especially if you run with multiple groups.

I had the trial key and I had ran also the Argent keys yesterday. Then I had a trial in guild 1. Afterwards we ran the dungeons again -- I was lucky to find a few people who had the Argent keys and needed the trial key again.

Next is my trial prog group (we are taking a detour from our regularly scheduled programming to get the no death run) so I will use the trial key there. We might want to run it twice, so we are forced to lose time on Argent killing and three dungeons.

Then the next day I need to get Argent keys again, and the dungeons to go to the guild 2 run.

This gathering keys every time makes it inconvenient if you run in multiple groups, or want to run more than once a day. So these dungeons and this trial is a single-serve stuff. Once you have the achievements you are after, there is 0 reason to torture yourself again collecting keys. Everything else in the Night Market is really fun, but this overcomplicated key collection that should be a one time thing is the only thing sucking fun out of the game.

Soarora · 6:18AM

eashi wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

At the very least you should've allowed players to hold multiple copies of a key.

That run earlier ran from about 6:30 ET until 9:00 E. 2.5 hours to do all of that and clear the trial is crazy. Most groups cap their run times at 2 hours max for good reasons. In a less organized group that all would have taken much longer.

^^ and this was with me trying to high tail speedrun the argents. We did do one skirmish and a significant amount of time was spent trying to figure out what was going on with who has what relics and who needs what keys. The intent was to have the whole group do the dungeons but with only 3 people needing keys, the rest of us just sat around in the Plaza waiting for them to be done. Theoretically, yes, an endgame group of players could run the loop in 2 hours. But they’re not and I understand why— it feels like a waste of time (we only have so much of that!) when the keys only stack to one and you already have the key. And more mid-game groups? Absolutely that is not going to take 2 hours between needing to know brazen & argent mechanics, getting to the dungeons, the difficulty of the parch dungeon, and the trial itself.

Edit: I really want the core loop to work. I do, I think it’d be fun (except for the awkwardness of splitting into 3 groups of 4 and reconvening). But it just doesn’t work. I’m requiring everyone to have the gold key for next week. I can’t do that again.

kiheikat · 6:31AM

Left feedback in Nightmarket thread first, but going to chime in since this is my biggest frustration.

Please for the love of Mara let us stack a few keys or make it less of a burden for folks willing to help newer players in the 4-person/12-person areas.

I'm in multiple groups wanting to run Opulent. Whichever group gets there first is going to burn my keys and I don't know if I can replenish before the next group.

The push to get more people in dungeons and trials is great but the way it's set up feels like you're penalized for being willing to help.

allochthons · 8:04PM

eashi wrote: »

and because I was being helpful I left with no keys at all. This was not a group I normally run with and I will have to re-farm all of the stuff before I run with my other group later this week. The current system actively discourages helping in this way since for some it might mean they no longer can run with the group they signed up for/want to because someone asked them to help and they said yes.

Just want to emphasize this. ^^
In trying to encourage grouping and helping out, the unintended consequence is that you're discouraging it once we've completed anything.

Ways to fix keys, in order of usefulness:
1) Once we gain a key, we always have it. Then we're free to run any of the content at any time, for ourself or to help others. Everyone wins, no one loses.
2) Let the keys stack. Less useful, but workable.
3) Let us craft the keys. Less useful, but workable. UNLESS the crafting mats are rare, in which case, this is useless. And for the love of Alkosh, don't make the crafting mats faction-locked drops. That would be rage-inducing.

Soarora · 8:12PM

allochthons wrote: »

eashi wrote: »

and because I was being helpful I left with no keys at all. This was not a group I normally run with and I will have to re-farm all of the stuff before I run with my other group later this week. The current system actively discourages helping in this way since for some it might mean they no longer can run with the group they signed up for/want to because someone asked them to help and they said yes.

Just want to emphasize this. ^^
In trying to encourage grouping and helping out, the unintended consequence is that you're discouraging it once you've completed anything.

Ways to fix keys, in order of usefulness:
1) Once you gain a key, you always have it. Then you're free to run any of the content at any time, for yourself or to help others. Everyone wins, no one loses.
2) Let the keys stack. Less useful, but workable.
3) Let us craft the keys. Less useful, but workable. UNLESS the crafting mats are rare, in which case, this is useless. And for the love of Alkosh, don't make the crafting mats faction-locked drops.

I threw you an agree but I do think there’s a problem with permanent key unlocks: it breaks the concept of the core gameplay loop. Letting keys stack would give groups the option if they want to do a full argent to opulent run or do a gilded to opulent run or do an opulent only run. Permanent unlocks would make argent, gilded, and opulent runs separate almost all if not all of the time and would eventually cause thinning out of people trying to do some of the content. I don’t think the dungeons are enticing on their own right now, aside from the side achievements and need for keys.

Furyous · 8:42PM

Letting keys stack by running the 27 bosses multiple times, if they remove the delete-on-complete mechanic, would still burn people out extremely fast.

Clearing 27 bosses once is already a slog to find groups for.
Doing it 10 times just to bank 10 trial runs means 270 bosses total.
At ~20 minutes per boss, finding a group that's in sync with you, clearing to the boss, etc, that's roughly 90 hours of grinding.
90 hours is literally more than two full weeks of a real-life job just to run the trial a handful of times.

Any break for writs, food, a smoke, or real life means restarting the group hunt from scratch. That level of tedium breaks the spirit of the game. There is no other content in ESO where you have to "requalify" by grinding the same bosses over and over just to enter it again.

Permanent one-time completion flags would solve the coordination problem much more cleanly and keep the fun intact.

zaria · 8:49PM

code65536 wrote: »

@ZOS_Finn This key situation also complicates the ability for people to run with multiple groups.

For example, one player in one of my longstanding groups is running Opulent with another longstanding group before my group, which means that their keys are out of sync with ours.

You've done a good job of getting people to group up for district activities, but then you throw up these appalling barriers for the Gilded and Opulent instances.. People should be able to do this content without having to do a census of everyone's key status.

At the very least you should've allowed players to hold multiple copies of a key.

This almost sounds as messy as the original Craglorn main quest. It was an group quest but all had to be at the same quest level to continue and you could not go back to help.

allochthons · 9:00PM

Soarora wrote: »

Permanent unlocks would make argent, gilded, and opulent runs separate almost all if not all of the time and would eventually cause thinning out of people trying to do some of the content.

(emphasis added)

Having to re-earn the keys every time is causing thinning out of people NOW. We're not going to get to later at the current rate.
Stacking would be slightly better, but the math that @Furyous posted (thanks for that) shows just how punishing the stacking keys system would be. 27 bosses, not including the trial, just earn the chance to collect each of the three monster helm weights.

Even spread out over the 5 weeks we have left in the event, that's too much to ask.

@ZOS_Finn Please look at @Furyous's math.