Some guild mates and I have been discussing the key grind constituting a major bottleneck for coordinating groups around offline lives.
Could a solution be turning the key fragments into a guaranteed consumable item drop every time you kill a certain boss? Using the old morphing collectible system as a template (and don't make them unique items)? That way, people can collect keys for a later time, allowing for more planning flexibility for the instanced group content?

First I want to repeat what I've said in other posts, the Night market is fantastic!

Second, I don't have a huge issue with the way the keys are, but I understand why other players do. I get why the keys exist and don't think they should be a one and done type thing. But maybe they could have a limited number of uses so players that frequently group together will have more "overlap".

Three uses then you see an on screen message " You got through the door but unfortunately your key broke! Before you pass through this door again you'll need to obtain another key."

I don't know. I'm sure you guys can think of something more clever than that. But multiple use keys could remove some friction here while still keeping players in the districts helping other players.

Malyore wrote: »

Elendildur wrote: »

People have spoken about the keys already. but the main problem for me is the quests. They are way too difficult to find for how bad the rewards are. I like the idea of finding gear sets from older content, but overland gear isn't very useful.

If the quests continue to give bad rewards, they need to be easier to find. Maybe put all of them on the noticeboard at the start of the district, so people can grab them quickly (and make them sharable)
If the quests continue to be difficult to find, they need to give better rewards. Maybe they should drop gear from any trial, with a small chance at perfected gear

I like that they make you look around, but I don't like that they make you look around in constant swathes of enemies with fast respawns. It felt nice having to actually use my eyes to look at walls for propaganda, but it ended up just being me running around in circles while getting bombarded with attacks as I try to ignore all of the gameplay around me.

I don't mind any of the objectives, it's finding the quest in the first place I find problematic. The propaganda one seems to be a set spawn location, but the others in that district move their starting location, which makes them difficult to find

Tidezen wrote: »

Event is awful. Socializers/Extroverts love it, predictably. They love coercing others to play with them, forcing people to interact with them, who don't want to. Won't take no for an answer, keep trying to force unwelcome stuff on you.

I’m an introvert and do not want to play with people who aren’t interested in playing with me and I love NM. So… no.

Tidezen wrote: »

The "other side" of the MMO audience, is the people who play MMOs to GET AWAY from the real world...in lives and jobs in which they are forced to socialize, almost every day, often for long hours.

I feel so strange being an introvert with a life and a job where I have to talk to people who still enjoys Night Market lol.

Same as others. KEYS...omg. so much wasted guild progression time has been wasted because we are all out of sink. im fine getting keys, but long term. its gonna be crap. id rather get a key per my character then have it unlock permanately after first clear/kill

hope quest markers get fixed or updated to be more easily seen more than 1-2m away. i dont have them memorized and lots of running and dying to avoid mobs while searching the quest circles.

would love to see the oasis be traversable to each other. they are portals...

been enjoying it as dps and healer. not tried on a tank yet. thx for new content for causal groups that a challenge!

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

• Population within the Night Market has seen its fair share of feedback as well with folks noting they wished the population was a bit higher. We crafted the experience to fit within the current population limits and adding (or taking away) would potentially cause a detrimental experience in public areas. That said, for future iterations of the Night Market we will re-evaluate these population caps given the newfound data and feedback.

The problem with the population cap is not the number, it's the spread: one cap shared by four zones.

Exceeding 36 people in one district would be too many. (36 is already straining performance on console at skirmishes.) But 36 people spread across 4 districts is too few.

I'd suggest separate caps per district, with a soft cap at 24 with a hard cap at 36, meaning the game will not automatically fill an open instance with new players or groups exceeding 24, but groups can still pull in extra people manually, up to the hard cap (creating some flexibility).

The result: all instances will have healthy population (not too high, not too low, and none will be empty). Groups can still pull in more people up to the cap, and groups have the option to return to plaza if they're in a full instance and want to get everyone together. The design consequence of a per-district pop cap would be that instances get determined and reassigned each time you pass through the plaza (instead of once upon entering the plaza), so ungrouped players might not always stay together in the same instance when passing through the plaza. But groups would still be kept together, and ungrouped players are generally disinterested in staying together anyway. The plaza itself might be able to hold more players (especially with dueling disabled) to create a more populated feel.

Given how this is a group oriented zone, especially for PUG groups, the skirmish timer bug on the scoreboard needs to be fixed. Today, the time said a skirmish was active in Skittering (it wasn't). The next area countdown went down to 0 in Sorrow (nothing happened). And then it finally stared in Parch. By that time, most people had fled the group.

I'd guess this might have something to do with groups forming across multiple instances, so it's breaking the timer. But it does need to be fixed soon. It's demoralizing getting a full group together for a specific activity and then it falls apart because the game is confused.

I would honestly caution hyping up engagement so early in NM's release, because EVERY big release goes this way. People pile in for about a month or so and then engagement starts to die out. People either get bored, get frustrated by X or Y grind, or get what they wanted and then don't mess with the content. I'd say it would be better to wait until the end of the cycle for the NM to get a better idea of how many people KEEP engaging with the content.

There's also something to be said about people needing to farm Keys, because that can make engagement seem like it's higher than it is. Are a majority of people doing the general content because they WANT to, or are they only doing it over and over because they HAVE to in order to do the content they'd prefer to (the Dungeons and Trial)?

And then there's definitely something to be said about making group content where grouping doesn't work as often as it should. Random groups can be hard to fill, especially if you're looking for specific things. Groups can fall apart quickly for a variety of reasons. Groups can be too weak and wipe repeatedly. Getting to a group that's further in can be impossible because of overtuned trash packs. Groups can consist of people in different factions but faction quests as I understand can't be shared to people in other factions. If the answer is going to be "just group" then grouping ACTUALLY needs to work and groups need to have an easier time at succeeding than it sounds like many have.

The biggest issue in regards to grouping seems to be trash being too strong, honestly. If you die and get separated from the group, it can result in not being able to get back to them. If the group is too far in you might not have any ability to even get to them. If enough people die and they get scattered around the map, people can wind up just giving up and the group winds up being too small to do much of anything else. Trash packs genuinely need to be tuned down to SOME degree so that getting to a group isn't so hard and getting separated from a group isn't so punishing.

Because as it stands, I 100% see the NM going to same route as big "group" things have time and again. Activity for a while after release, but then after a time too few people are doing the content for one reason or another and it gets to a point where a majority can't get a group together to run it. I would say it would be better to make things a bit more accessible so the NM actually sticks around for the long haul, then to keep it where it is and risk it vanishing after the initial three runs because interest and engagement dropped off too hard.

shadoza wrote: »

Psyphiman wrote: »

I don’t understand the criticism about social interaction. In most of the groups I’ve been in many people don’t say a word. You can think of playing in a group as having 11 companions. They just help you with hit points and damage. And you can make them go away when the quest is finished.

Edit: The 11 Companions would be a great guild name!

I think some folks have had a bad experience because not every group is pleasant. Some are very selective and will kick you or avoid you if you do not meet their gear or skills standards. (gatekeeping is real)
Asocial people might find public rejection confusing or difficult to not take personally. They want to experience the Night Market and maybe they want the house, but they are loathed to risk that aggressive behavior that sometimes comes with dealing with strangers. (You can see the aggression in the fora. Imagine what it might be like for them in the game chat where the Devs don't see it.)

The house rewards are often viewed as a great reward by those that do not decorate because they give a quick access to various countries on the map for new characters that had not been there.

On the bad side, the Night Market was billed as an event for everyone when it was introduced. While that bill has been toned down, it still rings in the minds of the players that heard it. If the Night Market had been billed as a new approach to a trial dungeon, this whole scene would have been different. The controversy with solo players would not be.

Maybe there is some gatekeeping in vet dungeons and trials but it’s an overreach to say there is gatekeeping in Night Market pickup groups. It sounds like the anxiety you are describing is from people’s past experiences or biases. Then they decide in advance they don’t like the Night Market.

Psyphiman wrote: »

shadoza wrote: »

Psyphiman wrote: »

I don’t understand the criticism about social interaction. In most of the groups I’ve been in many people don’t say a word. You can think of playing in a group as having 11 companions. They just help you with hit points and damage. And you can make them go away when the quest is finished.

Edit: The 11 Companions would be a great guild name!

I think some folks have had a bad experience because not every group is pleasant. Some are very selective and will kick you or avoid you if you do not meet their gear or skills standards. (gatekeeping is real)
Asocial people might find public rejection confusing or difficult to not take personally. They want to experience the Night Market and maybe they want the house, but they are loathed to risk that aggressive behavior that sometimes comes with dealing with strangers. (You can see the aggression in the fora. Imagine what it might be like for them in the game chat where the Devs don't see it.)

The house rewards are often viewed as a great reward by those that do not decorate because they give a quick access to various countries on the map for new characters that had not been there.

On the bad side, the Night Market was billed as an event for everyone when it was introduced. While that bill has been toned down, it still rings in the minds of the players that heard it. If the Night Market had been billed as a new approach to a trial dungeon, this whole scene would have been different. The controversy with solo players would not be.

Maybe there is some gatekeeping in vet dungeons and trials but it’s an overreach to say there is gatekeeping in Night Market pickup groups. It sounds like the anxiety you are describing is from people’s past experiences or biases. Then they decide in advance they don’t like the Night Market.

There is gatekeeping in the Night Markets.
You said: "I don’t understand the criticism about social interaction." Now you say: " Then they decide in advance they don’t like the Night Market."
I offered an answer to your wonder. If you have a predetermined concept/understanding then I cannot say more.

When I had a look at Reddit last, the reception wasn't overwhelmingly positive at all. Either way, I'd like to address this somewhat hypocritical mindset of "I'm only seeing negativity in the forums" that I keep seeing. I've said it once but it seems to warrant pointing out again.

Whether it is here, in-game chat, Reddit, Steam, Discord servers, or some other social media, all any of us are EVER seeing is a small fraction of the overall playerbase. The people trying to discredit others' concern and dissatisfaction by saying it's "only a minority" because X or Y is "mostly positive" can have the argument turned around on them. That they're only seeing what a fragment of the community are saying and that doesn't make one side's views the majority or the minority. It means we're seeing at most what a couple hundred people might think out of a playerbase thousands of times that size.

So can we perhaps drop this whole "most people I see are happy with it!" means of trying to dismiss dislike? Plenty of people in various places ARE dissatisfied, others aren't. It's like people are trying to claim negative opinions and feedback don't count just because it's on the forums. That's not how feedback works, you can't simply try to hardwave things away because you don't agree with them.

We have numbers that COULD be inflated because of the way getting Keys seems to work. Like I said before, it's possible people aren't doing certain content because that's what they WANT to be doing, it's because they HAVE to in order to do the Dungeons/Trials. We have no way of knowing how much of that Favor is gotten because of that, and we have no idea if engagement would fall off at all if the Keys were one-time obtained or able to stack. Even ZOS' data can't tell them WHY people are doing certain content, just that it's being done.

There is, again, the problem of taking an initial burst of activity at the start of a new Zone (because let's not forget it IS a whole Zone and not simply an Event like the Jubilee or New Life) to mean something is actually popular or not. Because EVERY new Zone has that initial burst of activity. What will be more telling isn't how active something is at its beginning, when people are coming in to check it out or working to get what they want, but rather how active it is towards the end. Is the content engaging and fun enough once people are done getting what they want that they keep doing it simply because it's fun? We already have people who've been largely positive starting to get bored or burned out, and some of them don't even sound like they've been really grinding particularly hard.

We can't judge something's success from just a few weeks of it being introduced. Most everything is a success at first. But that doesn't necessarily mean it'll maintain that momentum. We won't have a really accurate picture of how successful it really is until closer to the end of the first run.

As for the LFG tool, I would honestly be surprised if it wasn't having the biggest surge of activity since it's inception given how hard the NM is. But that also doesn't necessarily mean that all those groups are succeeding, just that they're being put together. It's kind of designed to force people into using it too because of how low the popcap is across the whole Zone per instance; if you DON'T use the LFG tool you more than likely won't be finding a group, from what I've seen other people mentioning.

And I know this probably sounds like "oh just disregard the numbers to push a dislike" but that's not the point at all. The point is to say numbers at the START of something won't matter as much as numbers at the END of it.

key co-ordination is a pain. have an unlimited integer of keys for each destination.

i had to clear all dungeons ~8 times to get one group ready for the trial. if i had those keys would have simplified massively, could pre-farm like 10 entries into the trial.

bugs... i've not seen mentioned:

skittering skirmish. unlimited spider swarms. I've even seen these at the edge of the (whole zone) map! once you get too many because no one does the mechanic the whole instance is screwed. Death anywherer seconds after jumping down, no way to counter. Maybe if everyone leaves it would reset... but yea that's not going to happen.

Werewolf boss. The blue/green debuff mechanic rarely doesn't spawn. de-aggro and reset you get the same issue. only managed to work around by going to new instance.

duneripper boss. sometimes it's active but on entry there are no green poison spewing things so no way to progress the fight.

timers showing when next skirmish. Often wrong or showing 0s. Work around by asking group who has one with an actual countdown which (mostly but not always) has seemed accurate.

shadoza wrote: »

Psyphiman wrote: »

shadoza wrote: »

Psyphiman wrote: »

I don’t understand the criticism about social interaction. In most of the groups I’ve been in many people don’t say a word. You can think of playing in a group as having 11 companions. They just help you with hit points and damage. And you can make them go away when the quest is finished.

Edit: The 11 Companions would be a great guild name!

I think some folks have had a bad experience because not every group is pleasant. Some are very selective and will kick you or avoid you if you do not meet their gear or skills standards. (gatekeeping is real)
Asocial people might find public rejection confusing or difficult to not take personally. They want to experience the Night Market and maybe they want the house, but they are loathed to risk that aggressive behavior that sometimes comes with dealing with strangers. (You can see the aggression in the fora. Imagine what it might be like for them in the game chat where the Devs don't see it.)

The house rewards are often viewed as a great reward by those that do not decorate because they give a quick access to various countries on the map for new characters that had not been there.

On the bad side, the Night Market was billed as an event for everyone when it was introduced. While that bill has been toned down, it still rings in the minds of the players that heard it. If the Night Market had been billed as a new approach to a trial dungeon, this whole scene would have been different. The controversy with solo players would not be.

Maybe there is some gatekeeping in vet dungeons and trials but it’s an overreach to say there is gatekeeping in Night Market pickup groups. It sounds like the anxiety you are describing is from people’s past experiences or biases. Then they decide in advance they don’t like the Night Market.

There is gatekeeping in the Night Markets.
You said: "I don’t understand the criticism about social interaction." Now you say: " Then they decide in advance they don’t like the Night Market."
I offered an answer to your wonder. If you have a predetermined concept/understanding then I cannot say more.

How do you know there is gatekeeping in the Night Market? Have you played it? I have, and I have seen absolutely no gatekeeping. The groups have been casual, friendly, and fun.

It seems that much of the criticism on the forum comes from people who have not played it.