Night Market - Week One Notes

Remathilis · May 7

Can we do something about the "weak enemy" splinter drop? I only got one despite playing in groups every night.

ob1ken0bi · May 7

I am loving the Night Market. I play solo and with a group.
A couple things I found difficult when grouping, which is kinda the idea of the Night Market

1. Keys. They are making it tough to coordinate with groups. A lot of good suggestions in this thread. I like th eidea of the one time deal. Once you're done the first time, you should be able to interact with any group that is doing a boss you already did.

2. Chests. I basically just ignore them now. Its a small amount of gold and a overland set piece and that's it. If you have Deshaan or Wrothgar sets, there is no point of risking getting caught opening them. I would suggest something that has a chance to get in the chests. Like Favor points or a lead for furnishing.

3. In district Quesr Rewards. Same as chests. The favors are great but the reward inside is just a gear piece. It's great if you dont have them but let's be honest. You made the difficulty high and most players at higher levels already have all these overland pieces.

4. Have a bank in the Night Market. I know there is one in the house when you get 5,000 favors but a bank to put things on sale in the trader would be nice, especially since you are giving out a ton of gear pieces in the rewards.

5. The Tonic of Portent Favor is a rare, craftable consumable that grants a 100% bonus to Faction Favor earned from Night Market enemies and district events for 30 minutes. EXCEPT it doesn't give 100% bonus on in district Quest rewards, which is a district event.

jad11mumbler · May 7

Nice to see ZoS address the feedback!

I know a fair share of it has been negative from some parts of the playerbase, notably solo players that are hesitant to group, but NM has been a breath of fresh air for many of us!

Love the extra zone to group up with my social guild!
We used to group up to do WB zone clears, but with so many players those were getting killed far too quickly, to the point we had to implement a "One light attack" rule so everyone could get a share of the loot.

Love being able to pop up a "Night market group starting soon, come join!" In guild chat and seeing people flock to it.

Rkindaleft · 12:21AM

Honestly, anyone who's actually paying attention in game can see how much this event has taken over and how popular it is.

Guilds that aren't even focused on trials/dungeons/high level PvE are talking about it. Even my casual trader guild runs groups more than once a night. Group Finder has exploded - on PS/NA right now on a weekday evening there's 15+ listings for Night Market and once you actually join a group it fills up in like 60 seconds max. It's also got a bunch of people who weren't sure on group content before to try out stuff like trials, and a lot of them enjoyed doing them, and that's fantastic for the game overall.

The only place I'm seeing regular negativity is on the forums, and it's largely dominated by the same handful of posters (everyone knows who they are). In game and even on Reddit the reception is quite positive.

BetweenMidgets · 12:37AM

Fix the quest sharing aspect of the game. Quests from the Plaza which were stated to be sharable, many are not if some unknown conditions are or are not met.

There should not be a barrier to quest sharing in a group designed zone.

Furyous · 1:00AM

ISkylanderI wrote: »

I really enjoyed Nightmarket.

I went in solo on my Raid character without changing anything on my build and normal Thresh adds were doable for me. I would prefer the Nightmarket to be a bit harder so I actually have to prepare my character for solo playing, but I understand that it can't be balanced for the top 0.1%, so I would say the difficulty is fine.

I cleared everything without grouping, but with random players, occasionally accepting their groupinvite and tagging along. It was a fun experience. Sometimes a bit frustrating when I looked at the group damage of a 12-man group and saw I did 40% group damage, but that's my toxic endgame raider personality and is not the fault of the Nightmarket.

After exploring everything solo, I went in with a Dungeon HM group and did the dungeons For my liking it was too easy, but I have every Dungeon-Triple-Achievement, so again I guess I can't expect this kind of content to be balanced for my level. Maybe a HM would be nice here.

I haven't done the trial yet, so I can't say anything about it It's hard to find a trial group for me. There are not many endgame raiders left that are motivated to do things outside of raiding.

After completing every boss, there was only the 10k faction favor left to do. Skirmish-Hopping war ziemlich effektiv. Joining Skirmishgroups via Groupfinder easily let me do 5–6 Skirmishes an hour. With the new "Tonic of Portent Favor", that's 1 k Favor, so it was done very easily without much effort.

Even less effort was Blood on the Sands Daily Quest. You can just take this quest, join a random big group via groupfinder and travel to the instance they are in. You don't need to leave the Questhub and the group completes the quest for you. Doing that with all my characters gave me 750 Favor in 30 minutes without doing anything. Maybe this needs a fix. If everyone does this, it could disrupt group play.

So I guess I had a fun week, but Nightmarket is finished now. There is just no reason to play it again. But that's a problem for the game in general, not just the Nightmarket.

The rewards in the Nightmarket are the same as always: Overland Sets that I already have, annoying items that clutter up the inventory, whose only purpose is to sell them for gold. I never understood those. Why not drop gold directly? These items just disrupt the game flow. After a few bosses, I have to stop and sell those for gold.

If I could make a wish for the next Nightmarket, it would be better rewards, but I don't know what these rewards could be.

Style number 250 could maybe be worth it, but I would just farm that style, because I always complete the collection, I don't actually use them. But other than that I have no idea, maybe something completely new needs to be introduced into ESO as rewards in general.

Also a raid with an unusual Number of Players could be interesting. Maybe a 20-player raid. It would follow the theme of grouping with people you usually don't play with and break with old habits.

Overall, I really liked the Nightmarket; it's a step in the right direction Finally, ZOS remembered what the M's in MMO stand for.
It feels like Craglorn back in the days.

"Damn, sounds like you had an absolute blast solo-carrying the entire Nightmarket on your god-tier raid build 😂

Quick question though… did you sprain your arm patting yourself on the back that hard the whole time? Because reading this I’m pretty sure your keyboard is still dented from all the humblebrags.

Congrats on being the main character of ESO though, king. The rest of us peasants will just keep enjoying the content like normal people."

WhiteCoatSyndrome · 1:12AM

+1 having to re-earn the keys after each completion has largely killed any desire for me to try the Trial again.

spartaxoxo · 3:00AM

On the subject of rewards, one thing I would like to see are rewards that change the fun or usefulness of the main attraction.

For example, since the big reward for Night Market is the house, it would awesome to get crafting stations that look like small work orders. Think a clothing catalog with Glittering Goad models illustrated on the pages, or a weapon rack with Ruckus themed weapons the character inspects to order from a blacksmith. Small stations that we could put in the rooms that wouldn't detract from the overall atmosphere. A small little crow's nest with little shiny baubles as a jewelry station for the thousand eyes.

We've been needing something like these anyway since stations are always massive looking and distracting and the Night Market would be a sensible place for work order themed stations.

Contraptions · 3:21AM

Fully admit I was wrong about how popular NM would be, which is good to see. Let's hope it can keep this energy for the next month or so eh.

And yeah, using group finder is definitely the way to go if you're pugging it. Just have a decent tank and most encounters are ok.

Some of the issues like getting credit for skirmishes and the RNG for fragments has been addressed a bit. Which is nice, kudos for the speed.

Keys are still the major pain point. Getting trial set rewards was also nice for calamitous. Make them rotate perhaps? Good chance to fill out stickerbook for trials that aren't as popular anymore. And agree that overland sets are just junk nowadays. Furnishings, furnishing plans, motifs, raw mats etc. are all much better. Golden box to me is actually good. Blue box is... usually garbage.

Some content has probably been nerfed a bit already, which I don't mind. The parch races having no more floor mounted walls to jump over and only crouch walls. The skittering skirmish not spamming so many adds. and some others.

spartaxoxo · 3:34AM

Could you guys maybe put the gilded keys in the faction vendor for say 20k each with achievement? This way if someone is missing a key for the trial/dungeon then they could buy it but it would be too expensive for most to want to so there would still be plenty of farming. That way groups don't gotta disband when they realize their buddy forgot they didn't have it.

BHoth_ · 3:43AM

Thank you for the night market! The presence of drop in, drop out pve group content is something I thoroughly enjoy in mmos, and while this isn't perfect it's a great addition to the repertoir of activities ESO offers. Gw2 has many excellent examples of this kind of content, and it makes the open world gameplay in that mmo so much better for it.

Please make the loot worthwhile, tho! As well as making all quests shareable and reducing the respawn rate of normal mobs.

SirBanana1992 · 3:45AM

Hello! I am quite enjoying the NM myself and appreciate the effort that went into it! I have mostly similar complaints as expressed here, namely the key system. I would like to add pain points I have about some of the non-combat activities I would like to see adressed.

Skittering Precinct:
- This is the one that is somewhat combat related but is about a design flaw in the Skirmish but it seems that attracting aggro of this particular Skirmish at any point causes you to be permastuck in combat throughout the entire precinct with no way to lose it, not even on the rooftops and even with no nearby enemies. Getting yourself killed might clear it but this is not a practical way to lose it if you were near an objective already. Seems the spawning spider mobs from it chase you to the edges of the precinct and will not let go. This has ramifications on any other activity type in the precinct as they will interrupt your various activities, and worse, completely prevent you from participating in the spider torch minigame since the buttons cannot be interacted it while in combat. When alone it might be enough to just let yourself be killed and respawn but in a large group the entire group would have to collectively let itself be killed and this may be annoying to coordinate.

The Parch:
- Very simple but I'd just like to be able to keep my Shadowy Disguise active when going through a sandwall. If enemies are on the other side I can't do my sneaky activities safely and have to find a different way around.

Sorrow's Friend:
- The Light torch puzzle feels like it sometimes barely gives you enough time by yourself to redirect the stones. It is one thing trying to figure out the solution but sometimes as I am changing them I don't even have time to check the 4th before it fires off. I'd like either an extended timer before the lights fire or a 5th interaction to lets us manually fire it off when we're ready. It feels counter-intuitive to be presented with a puzzle but not have the time to think about a solution at all.

Night Market (general):
- If the Night Market is an instance, I'd like to be able to quick-exit (PTE for the PC players) the instance to return to my normal activities.

TinyDragon · 5:57AM

I'm super excited to see you acknowledging feedback so the that the loud voices saying the "vocal minority" are the ones enjoying Night Market aren't yelling in a vacuum. I've been enjoying night market a lot, and everyone I've spoken to in my casual pve guild and endgame pve guild has felt similarly. I've been concerned you would move away form the difficulty or group requirements, so I'm very happy to see this as something you want to continue.

With regards to keys, it is a bit difficult. Could they be consumable? That way, I'd get rewards for helping my friends farm splinters, and killing ardents repeatedly. I could farm in advance and then run dungeons with multiple friends instead of need to redo my keys after. I understand one and done would make the zone very quiet later on!

CatalinaWineMixer2 · 6:16AM

Eso has needed events like this for a long time. You guys far exceeded my expectations! This event is genius! Until it's release, I didn't think it was possible to find a way to encourage the Realm to group up and work together. I am still astonished. Whoever masterminded it, please give them a raise and a bigger budget!

I ran the new trial and didn't know whether to laugh or have tears of joy😂 Just being there to experience people trying to figure it out and come up with a strategy was was the best part!

There are so many benefits to the community due to this event, I would be here all day trying to list them. I will highlight some of the very important ones.
1. It encourages people to play with others outside of their guilds, trial groups and dischord channels. This is one of the most important things that can happen im any MMO!
2. It is the absolute best way to bring more players from all walks of Eso into more difficult content.
3. It is a way for players of all levels of the game to interact with one and other. And learn from each other. So many people Ive been grouped with have endlessly thanked me for opening up parts of the game to them they never though possible. Only its you guys they should be thanking! I was just playing the content you guys made, same as them.

There are a few things I hope you guys will stick to your convictions on, one of them being the key system. Please, whatever you do, dont let people stockpile keys. Doing so would stop people from running groups there and take us backwards into farming. And it would cause people to only run it with their inner circles, not the Realm. And it will cause a population decline over the course of the event. Please please please, dont let people stockpile keys.

Please do not alter the difficulty of the Night Market. It is absolutely perfect where it is! It's not over the top and its not a walk in the park either.

Im guessing at this but I think the purpose of the faster spawn rates is to keep the number of the instances down. The fact that we must keep fighting our way through is a good thing when it comes to better performance and also to keep us engaged in combat. Its so engaging, im always telling my groups, keep moving! Keep fighting!😎 It creates much needed action.

You guys touched on a lot of the polishing I think it could use. For a new system and event, it was such a good rollout. There will always be a few hiccups here and there but I cant wait to see whats in store for the future with this! I will add a separate post later on in the event with suggestions that might improve the Night Market and other similar events (please, lots more of these!).

Please keep up the good work and thank you for listening to us and making fun and exciting new group content!

noneatza · 6:21AM

Keys are an issue, sure, but making the dungeon keys a one time thing is a big no-no since once everyone has them it will become nearly impossible to pug a dungeon, there will be no incentive to repeat-play them.

Either introduce the dungeons INTO the trial and eliminate the dungeons entirely, OR keep the same system and make the keys last 24 - 48hours. This way there will always be some population around to play the dungeons.

OR, (and this is an outstandingly lazy to do things), make the keys permanent but add an achievement to the tune of "complete dungeon x number of times" with a reward(title? cosmetic?). The number being large enough to be a proper grind and to artificially force some of the population to redo it.

TaxiDriver2116 · 6:46AM

I’m loving the Night Market a lot! I only have one main criticism that bothers me: please allow us to stack up several duplicates of all the keys. I have a couple groups and I want to run Opulent Ordeal with both of them. It’s difficult to get everyone on the same page with keys. I would enjoy it that much more if I could farm all the keys I need for multiple OO runs ahead of time so I’m prepared for these groups 💕

shadoza · 7:35AM

"We want Night Market to encourage grouping and reward players for those choices but there is something to be said about having some solo-oriented activities."

My sub renewal is currently in the off position. That something to be said should have already been stated already. Consumers are feeling slighted. The bad feelings have been festering long enough that they are making a path into the fora now.

Being an after thought is not promising. You encourage grouping and reward groupies for following your choices. The solo players will drift off to other titles by other production teams. You won't miss them because you don't listen to them. You will think the silence is conformation. (I am not a conformist and never will be.) Since you do not need the financial support of solo players, I tossed my budget at another game a couple days ago and am spending time elsewhere.

I cam play this game free when I feel like playing it. The groupies can pay for their new content themselves, while I play the content I paid for.

fizl101 · 7:43AM

Loving night market alot, really like getting ia verses for a while. The key situation (I like the suggestion someone made that they would be reusable for a limited period of a few days) and challenge with the mini quest markers visibility aside, its definitely high up there on the content I enjoy

mchudo · 7:48AM

Hello there,
NM is an interesting experience. I don’t think it is my big cup of tea but so far I managed to grind it enough to my surprise… Personally, I expect that i’ll run out of incentives very soon as i’ve completed almost all that is of interest to me. Need to grind faction dailies and then could return to the world for daily chores… unless there will be some new interesting incentives added.

As for further improvements,

I wish the kill count of the daily quest was removed from the main screen. I’m playing on ps and I could not find a way to remove the pop ups from the middle of the dcreen. When killing those 75 enemies in a group, those multiple pop up messages cover pretty much all the screen for quite a while, can’s see through. Maybe a basic count on the right side quest menu would be enough?

Aaaanddd, maybe double columns could be removed from the unlockable rooms in the night den. Or at least some… that could improve the look by a lot.

CAB_Life · 8:30AM

Continue making incremental adjustments. I think better cues as to what someone should be doing when they enter the event is a must. Furthermore, the key dungeons should be queueable. If the goal of this event is to encourage participation in the game’s various multiplayer systems, making these dungeons the only dungeon that you can’t queue for next to four man arenas seems a bit silly, and for that matter four man arenas should also be queueable at this point—they’re hardly any more difficult than the most recent vet dungeons.

Other than that, I’ve completely reversed from my initial impressions, which were quite negative, into thinking this event is a net positive.

Don’t touch the difficulty it’s fine.

Supreme_Atromancer · 8:50AM

Stoked its been recieved so well. I love that the post is not written in divisive us-and-them language. I'm having a great time with my guild doing Night Market, but I do get how it would feel to have a barrier if you just like to solo!

The communication made me feel happy about ESO. Keep up the good work. And keep those spell scrolls coming, btw. I want moar!!!