First of all, I want to say that I’m a fairly experienced player with 2200+ CP, and like many others, I mostly log in these days just to do crafting dailies. I fully support ZOS in their attempt to give us more non-trivial content. After the stagnation of the Chapters era, this is exactly what the game needs. However, I’m not impressed with the Night Market.

I was really looking forward to it. I even prepared a dedicated character for it (necro/nb/arc). But unfortunately…

At first, I died a lot even to the first groups of mobs, but I adapted fairly quickly. I considered equipping Pale Order, but ended up just using the Reaving Blows star. I tried to solo bosses, but quickly realized that it’s impossible.

Later, I found a group of players who seemed to just be doing dailies in the district. I didn’t join their party, just followed them around. Despite all being high CP, they played quite poorly and didn’t use meta sets or skills. We tried to kill a bronze boss and wiped 5–6 times. Then the group disappeared somewhere, and I just went to sleep.

The next day I found a larger group. It didn’t even feel like a proper group — just a bunch of players following an experienced tank and farming bosses. Somehow we managed to kill Dune Ripper. I’m not sure if it was a bug, but the boss was still alive, and then suddenly I just saw its corpse and was able to loot it.

After that, the tank left the district and the rest of the players disappeared as well. Still, I thought the idea was interesting, so I switched to my tank. And… nothing. Completely empty. I was spamming LFM in chat, and after 15 minutes only one person responded.

So I switched characters again and ported to someone from my friends list who had been in the Night Market for a while. Luckily, I got invited, and we spent about an hour farming bosses. It reminded me of Imperial City night boss runs — but much more boring, because there’s no real risk. And honestly, in a group it becomes extremely casual. We just bursted everything around us, and it felt neither fun nor meaningful.

My impressions:

- This game desperately lacks meaningful open content — something you can just log into and play, without feeling like it’s pointless. There should be interesting rewards or some kind of progression. And it shouldn’t require forming a group — let alone require support roles. Unfortunately, the Night Market is the exact opposite of that.

- The overwhelming emptiness makes this content feel fundamentally non-viable. It felt like most players only went there out of curiosity because it’s new. Nobody really understood what to do. I never once saw anyone solve a puzzle or engage with mini-games.

-Trash mob packs are just annoying. They’re damage sponges with no interesting mechanics, no loot, and they can randomly one-shot you.

- I DON’T UNDERSTAND ANYTHING. What am I supposed to do? Why kill bosses? Why farm this reputation? What are these keys, and how do I get them? Then I’m supposed to find 4 people who already have keys, haven’t done the dungeons I need, and match the required roles? And after that, find 12 more people who cleared everything but haven’t done the new trial yet? Seriously? ZOS, this is not the same as scheduled progression raiding or building core groups. This is madness.

- I really didn’t like the map. The locations feel flat, there’s nothing to explore. Fargrave is very poor in terms of assets — just corridors, boss arenas, and brown walls. Why is Roksa there? Why is Taupezu Azzida there? Why are bosses we’ve already killed in dungeons, trials, and overland appearing again? Are these clones? Is there any lore explanation?

Overall, I’m disappointed and not sure I even want to continue playing the Night Market. I expect we’ll see heavy nerfs to mobs and bosses soon, and probably an extension of the event. But that will likely kill the Night Market completely.

Ideally, what we need is open content that doesn’t require a group, filled with engaging activities. Not trivial, not dependent on support roles — just something balanced around an average DPS with some self-sustain, and the possibility of failure. less trash mobs and more mechanics.

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

And don't you see the comments where people write that they are fine with the current difficulty?

I do and I hope Zos can keep the lights on by catering to that 20% of players while trying to force the other 80% to change how they play. You don't need to white Knight for them. I'm happy to move on to other games.

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

Because difficulty is fine?

And clearly you've not taken any time to read the majority of the comments in this thread.

Alright I’m back with feedback #3 after running with my guild again and also a surprise experience of running as a 3 person group.

Starting with my guild run, we peaked at 11 people. 1 tank, 2 healers, rest dds. I used the same builds as last time and mostly the same people. This time, we focused on completing quests for the 100% relic shard drop over today and the next day(s) and side achievements. We also killed some bosses people needed as we went around.

I will once again harp on how bad the rewards are. Killing the calamitious bosses was fine, we all have reason to. Some, for achievements. Others, for rewards. But the Brazen and Argent bosses felt more like doing it for the guildies, not that I get anything out of it. And honestly, I’m tired of mothers sorrow destruction staves. It’s clogging my inventory. I’d rather us not get overland gear at all. Craglorn gear at least is useful because people don’t farm craglorns much these days.

We also had a problem where we intended to get the “kill the skirmish with the calamitious boss engaged” achievement but Roksa de-aggro’d and left at the end, ruining our achievement. There’s also clash here because random players focus the calamitious boss and if it dies first, the achievement is ruined. The ones we ran into were mostly receptive to zone/yell/say/whispers but not everyone will be.

I also noted that it’s weird that Exarch Molonach has the traps from MoS but with no NPC to lay them. I also discussed with another player, who brought up to me that there’s no NPCs shouting mechanic help directions and that makes it a lot harder for people who haven’t done the dungeons before. I see NPCs leave the districts but we never see NPCs alive in them except for enemies. For the next Night Market, perhaps you could add faction members to shout out mechanic help (such as the infamous “I’m laying a trap for your enemy, hang in there!” for Molonach and maybe like “You might want to dodge those!” for the blood orbs/tether on Ozezan, and more, of course). Could even have different factions help with different things, like Ruckus shouting these mechanics, Thousand Eyes leading you to quests, and Glittering Goad leading you to quest items.

I hope for next week, everyone will have the relics and we can try out the dungeons and the trial!

Now onto my experience in a 3-person group. Based on how quickly I died on my frost warden on PTS, I expected to get curb stomped immediately. But… I didn’t. I ran on my overland build: bow/bow, no points in health, no resolve, medium armor, storm calling/dark magic/assassination stamsorc. I ran with a fellow endgame player on their 4-man arcanist healer build and a random person we met upon entering the first district (we were going to do the intro to your faction quest, which we were able to complete with only accidentally wiping I think twice).

And honestly? It was a blast but in a different way than being in a large group was. Trash enemies were our focus, each pack feeling like a real battle with how long it took to kill the enemies but not to the point of it feeling like a slog. I was feeling the optimization itch, I wish vault had a pull focus script because that would’ve been perfect to have since I also have macabre vintage. I focused on low health enemies first to explode them with macabre vintage, killing the biggest health enemy last.

It felt like there was real danger in a way completely missed by previous zones, like the lightning in the Deadlands and the wandering world bosses. Those are avoidable. But knowing the trash respawns quickly, I felt like we couldn’t stay in one place for too long. And when we accidentally aggroed more than one pack of trash, I strategized by killing both trash around the same time (leaving some stragglers on each trash to make sure the pack wasn’t officially dead way before the other was). The Calamitous bosses really felt dangerous, we had to hug the wall and wait for them to pass through, hopeful the bosses wouldn’t see us. I don’t think this kind of group can kill anything other than trash but it’s enough to get to the quests and oddities. Please do not nerf the trash to meaninglessness like overland. If you must, make a normal version of the zone.

Edit: Oh, also,
1) I was surprised by just how many times the npcs during that intro quest hammers it in that this is a group zone, considering the backlash. I don’t recall if I’ve said it in this thread yet, but I would suggest adding a pop-up to Night Market like you have with trials, saying this is a group zone and you wont be able to achieve all content without a group. Maybe direct people to the group finder.
2) I was disappointed when I turned in the quest and that was it. I hope in the future, we can get more quests that further develop the factions—and our place in them—over time. I’d suggest keeping them more on the roleplay side, so solo players can still do them.
3) One of the sigils is in the middle of a trash pack. I noticed this on PTS but it felt very out of place now. All the other intractables for this quest you can do without aggroing anything… except for this one.

Edit 2: Okay final edit back-to-back, keep thinking of things. I have so much feedback… haha…
Please make the daily quests from inside the zones shareable. People get lost, people don’t pick up quests… it’d help with having everyone be on the same page, assuming they haven’t done the quest today already.

TairenSoul wrote: »

I feel like there's a lot of toxicity coming from "casual" players too that just assume everyone else is out to get them, when in reality, there are so many people running around with PUGs from the group finder that couldn't care less about how many hours you have, what level you are, or how many vet trials you've completed.

I have yet to read a toxic post from a casual player aimed specifically at a vet player. I HAVE read toxicity and name calling the other way around. I don't consider myself a casual player. I have been playing since 6 months after the game began. I play every day for hours. To say no one's cares what level you are or what build you have is not true, imo. Vet players don't normally open their arms to people who don't know mechs, etc. If you really don't care, I suggest you open yourself up to lead a group of solo players! Telling a solo player to use group finder is missing the point, also! There is nothing wrong with everyone wanting to play newly released content!

I've read plenty of comments calling anyone who likes NM an elite or 1%. That in on itself is toxic already.

It's a group zone. Be in a group. It really is that simple. The game has a decade worth of solo questing content, I bet most people that complain about NM haven't even done all of that.
The next update is going to bring more solo quest content, and droves too.