PTS Update 49 - Feedback Thread for Night Market

LunaFlora · January 23

personally i have not gone to PTS yet.

just need to say that i hope Night Market gets a lower difficulty option, like how other zones are getting higher difficulties.
Healing and Tanking is fun so if there are other people around it does seem nice to be able to do that in a zone.
But i am often only able to play in the middle of the European night, which means fewer players are around.

Other than that Night Market seems awesome.

Housing highlights.
- nice to see coloured paper lantern furnishings
- Night's Den is beautiful, happy that it is earned via the intro quest.

Fashion highlights.
- Lovely that the Monster Set styles are purchasable and we do not have to wait years to get them, unlike some dungeon styles.
- thematic motifs sound good, i hope each faction gets one crafting motif or a motif weight. cannot wait to see regardless

Zone highlights
- The Patrons all seem like cool characters.
- the zone looks beautiful, i love Fargrave/Mirrormoor.
- fun to see old bosses return.

shadoza · January 23

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for the all new Night Market Event Zone. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:
How do you feel about the distribution of rewards during this event zone?

How have you found the difficulty of the Night Market? Please provide any additional context to the difficulty ratings below.
Easy

Well-balanced

Difficult

Too difficult

Did you play Night Market solo, with a random group, or an organized group (friends/guild members)?

How did you enjoy the Event Zone? As this is a new event type, we would like to get any positives and negatives.

Did you try the different activities? If so, did you like them? Please let us know whatever you think worked and what missed the mark.

How do you like the new Patrons?

Did anything not function to your expectations?

Do you have any other general feedback?

Do what you want, I am tired of being bullied here. Even the moderators are bullying my post to favor other players here. I am done, you win. I don't care about this game anymore.

Enemoriana · January 23

Ммм, 36 players. So average is 9 for a zone (as somebody always will be talking with npc, trading and so).
At least half would be not-enough-experienced-for-this players - there will be much more on live than on pts.
At least third will be in process of resurrecting.
With nearly oneshoting mobs.
With a lot of grind.
What can go wrong?

Icy · January 24

I've now had a chance to go into the NM with a tank, 2 dps, 1 heal + companions and have thoughts, the most important of which is that more dancing Ogrim are required throughout the game, pls and thank you.

But, onto a more serious note:

How do you feel about the distribution of rewards during this event zone?
Terrible. After an hour, where we killed several 3mill bosses, 2 9mill bosses and 2 25mil bosses I got... wait for it... 160 favor. The cheapest thing I can buy is 2000. And 2 trade bars, just 2. Oh and the Gold Reward for the full kill daily gave me 1 purple weapon.

If it's 160 favor/hour (and that's a grindy hour) - I'm more likely to simply not bother with this event if I have no chance of getting earning the cool housing rewards from it.

How have you found the difficulty of the Night Market? Please provide any additional context to the difficulty ratings below.
Difficult, and probably on the too difficult side. I found it equivalent to at least Arc 4 IA.
The other problem was with mobs having so much health, but the time one group was killed, the previous group had respawned and so you could get stuck in a loop.

The boss health was just too much - 15 min + on a single fight is no fun.

Did you play Night Market solo, with a random group, or an organized group (friends/guild members)?
Solo - one shotted on a Full DPS, couldn't sneak past mobs on a NB and one shotted. Lasted 20 sec on my IA DK.
Grouped - 1 tank, 2 dps, 1 heal, 3 companions - better but tedious - the mobs just have too much health.

How did you enjoy the Event Zone? As this is a new event type, we would like to get any positives and negatives.
I like the zone design in general. I like the idea of the factions. I love the dancing Ogrim. Glad to be back in Fargrave (one of my fav zones).

Did you try the different activities? If so, did you like them? Please let us know whatever you think worked and what missed the mark.
Managed to roll the balls and bounce them between panels. Not sure what that did tho - something about sand?
Collected some things from a quest inside the Skittering - wasn't able to finish it.
Found some plates to stand on in the skittering - didn't seem to do anything.

The difficulty of the zone really meant I couldn't try/experience any of the the other things to do.

How do you like the new Patrons?
LUV them. I think they're great new characters!

Did anything not function to your expectations?
I could see the cool ideas there but our group simply wasn't able to achieve any of them, let alone make it into the dungeons - or even know if they could be unlocked.

Do you have any other general feedback?
Thank you for trying something new! I like the idea of the unlock tree of mobs. But the difficulty concerns me. If the full zone has a limit of 36, at the current difficulty, does that mean as players disperse around the zone, there are never any groups big enough to actually kill anything? Does that mean no-one will really get to experience the zone properly?

It looks cool, and I think it would be cool, but I don't play ESO to be feel punished, and the Night Market felt punishing, not challenging.

MSattrtand · January 24

How do you feel about the distribution of rewards during this event zone?

My main concern: leads for the new mythic drop there. What will happen with them after the Night Market event ends for this iteration? The only way to get them would be waiting for all 5 of them to appear at Tel-Var/Archival Fortunes merchant, or will there be other options?

How have you found the difficulty of the Night Market? Please provide any additional context to the difficulty ratings below

Well-balanced. Trash can be soloed. Bosses may require a small group. I believe in players, they will be able to write +%district_name% to self-organise into some group and run together, like they can write +jack or +crow. Or just run together without formal grouping.

Did you play Night Market solo, with a random group, or an organized group (friends/guild members)?

4-man group with 3 DDs and me as a healer - it was completely fine even without a tank. It doesn't take much time to kill bosses. E.g., for the big scary werewolf, we spent more time during the Balorgh hunt phase than we spent on actually dealing damage to the boss.
Also, I've tried killing trash solo with a beam build, and it was fine. Only heavy attacks were scary due to the PTS lag and EU ping.

How did you enjoy the Event Zone? As this is a new event type, we would like to get any positives and negatives.

It was fine. I haven't tried dungeons and the trial yet because I don't wanna farm fragments with the broken loot system. I liked that I haven't suffered from the combat bug at all - after that, I went on live to gather some mats, and I got stuck in combat with some lonely mob for a minute and a half for comparison.
Problems:
It's not intuitive how to access the traverse option for each district. Maybe I missed an explanation during the quest, but otherwise I had to look at the achievements to understand what I had to do.
Player's respawn is weird - I can't enter the combat whilst being a ghost (and it takes some time), but I can interact with quest objects.
Trash respawns too fast.

DexterMorg4n · January 24

How do you feel about the distribution of rewards during this event zone?

Rewards in this game have always felt underwhelming, and it’s not about to change now. Fighting a boss with 25 million HP just to get equally underwhelming favor points isn’t exactly engaging.

How have you found the difficulty of the Night Market? Please provide any additional context to the difficulty ratings below

The difficulty of the Night Market is honestly all over the place. What are you actually trying to do here? A kind of public dungeon? An open-world raid? Because those two play very differently. Either it’s a zone that can be completed solo, maybe with some help from other players or it’s group content, in which case it needs to be clearly stated and designed as such. For now, mobs and bosses are nothing more than HP sponges with little real interest

How did you enjoy the Event Zone? As this is a new event type, we would like to get any positives and negatives.

The area itself is decent, nothing more. Simply decorating a zone isn’t enough to make players marvel at it.

Do you have any other general feedback?

Yes, I also have a more general comment. If you want this MMO to survive, combat needs to be more dynamic, rewards need to be better, and the gameplay needs to feel good. Take Throne and Liberty as an example for that.

Eurymachos · January 25

The Night Market mob respawn timer seems to be real short.

There was a comment from ZOS that players by themselves should expect to have to follow a path cleared for them by a group. I don't mind that, but with the mob respawns happening as fast as they are now, that player is going to need to be running in the middle of that group.

My group had a couple of quests on and if we stopped to look at the map and try and see which quest objective was nearest, then the last trash pack would respawn and we would be in a fight again. I realise that we could fight from one portal platform to another and make navigation decisions from the platform but it's quite natural in ESO to just check you map.

Ngā mihi,
Eurymachos

Contraptions · January 25

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

- Population Cap: The current cap per instance of Night Market is roughly 36 players. That number is a bit fluid based on how we manage population caps but thats about the target we are shooting for.

I was originally neutral about this content but the 36 player cap has me ambivalent about this zone. In my mind I was expecting a Craglorn style adventure zone like we had long ago where the general lack of power of the average unoptimized quester's build would be made up for by them having larger numbers to meet and fight with naturally. Something like how dragon fights naturally attract lots of randos where they eventually whittle down the boss.

Dividing by 3 wings means the average population in one area is gonna be 12 or less, which is less than a full trial. Given how fast things respawn and how hard stuff hits this feels more like a weirdly overtuned public dungeon which is a lot less appealing. Consider increasing the player cap a lot more, this isn't PVP or whatever. Increasing player pop also makes content easier indirectly for those who wish to just zerg surf.

Kyzeragon · January 26

I played for ~2.5h on Tuesday night, but didn't get around to writing this feedback until now. Some things have already been addressed in the update post, but I included them anyway. I have a full recording available, if there are any clips needed for bugs or whatever.

How do you feel about the distribution of rewards during this event zone?

Okayish, lower rewards than I'd like for the effort needed. Overland and trial set pieces don't interest me because I already have them, but the trial pieces might be nice as a little intro for players who might not otherwise engage with trial content. Got a Ruckus helm page which looked cool. Got 470 favor in ~2 hours of poking around, which... doesn't sound like a lot.

How have you found the difficulty of the Night Market? Please provide any additional context to the difficulty ratings below.

Well-balanced, leaning towards easyish, satisfying density of enemies; HOWEVER, that's in an organized group of ~10 experienced raiders, all with at least Godslayer, and with tank and healers. Therefore, the time it took us to kill bosses meant the rewards felt okay.
I definitely believe that it would be too difficult for more average or casual players, even if the zerg is bigger, and especially if there is no tank. With the new info of 36 per instance, IMO bosses would still be too tanky, with no guarantee that they'll all be in the same area (or might just be off doing solo quests or oddities).

Did you play Night Market solo, with a random group, or an organized group (friends/guild members)?

Very organized group (see above).

How did you enjoy the Event Zone? As this is a new event type, we would like to get any positives and negatives.

Overall, I enjoyed it, because I did not go in with the expectation of doing the dungeon or trial encounters. Zerging the mobs is fun, at least for a while. Necrotic potency go brrrr.
Dunegorger was a pleasant surprise--reminiscent of GW2's leviathan
Very amused by the huge INCINERATION BEETLE!!!
Negatives mostly listed under general feedback at the bottom.

Did you try the different activities? If so, did you like them? Please let us know whatever you think worked and what missed the mark.

We completed 1 laser parkour Unstable Creatia, which was fine. We also completed 1 Boulder Dash. The ephemeral puzzles are a bit frustrating at first, because we would always happen upon them when they were ending, leaving no time to even figure out what the goal was. The boulder dash was cool after we saw which hole was the goal, but the golden effect is only there while it's active, so you don't have much time to plan the route, and then we had to camp it for 8 minutes for it to restart. Signifying which hole is the goal even while the game is not active might reduce friction.

How do you like the new Patrons?

Melandir being an amputee was a fun surprise. We might've spent a bit longer than necessary trying to apply effects to her, to see if arm visuals would still show up. Alas, she doesn't seem to take any effects...

Did anything not function to your expectations?

We killed some bosses in quick succession and did not get loot from one, so we concluded that the loot lockout similar to public dungeons was also applying here. It feels bad to kill a boss and get nothing, so I'm glad this is going to be addressed.
The Dunegorger got stuck both times we fought it. I think all of us were inside of it, and we killed everything in 1 phase (with healers and lots of rezzing). Once everything was dead, we exited, but it brought all of us, except for 1 person, to the entrance of the Parch zone. The 1 other person appeared to be ejected near the dunegorger and was able to loot, but when the rest of us got to it, the dunegorger was just idle shaking in the sand with 0 health, and we could not loot or damage it.
The Parch Ritual Skirmish got stuck. It seemed we were supposed to take the Motes of Magicka to attune the pylons, but when we reached the second phase to kill Storm Atronachs near them, the pylons would randomly(?) get broken, killing the storm atros near them didn't do anything, and there were also no longer any air atronachs that dropped the motes to repair the pylons. Then, at some point, one of the adds got stuck underground, so the whole ritual was soft locked. We left the area, came back later, and were able to complete it seemingly without any bugs.
Also during the Parch Ritual Skirmish, the HUD UI status bar for "Attune the Antiweather Pylons" progressed to 100%, but then just stayed there and did not indicate the next phase.
Time until next Skirmish seemed to always say 1h 0m. One player had it say a different area than the rest of us.

Do you have any other general feedback?

Splinter drop rate is too low on the ritual skirmishes. IMO it should be 100% because of the scheduled nature. The brazen and maybe argent bosses would be ok as not guaranteed drops, but it doesn't feel good to wait potentially 3(?) hours for a skirmish just to not get a splinter. Most, if not all, of our group got Parch's Glass Splinter from the skirmish though, so I wonder if it was just a bug and meant to be the Ritual's Glass Splinter instead?
Argent Balorgh Exarch Molonach felt tedious to fight compared to other Argents, too many hunt phases.
The HUD UI showing the points on each faction is not really useful. Something immediately visible to indicate how to progress through the night market would be more useful, and increase discoverability of the other info and tree.
It's understandable, but disappointing, that there isn't a way to bring group members to the group content without them doing the big grind beforehand. I have core members who only log on for raid because that is the thing they enjoy. You might say it's a personal problem if they refuse to grind for the relics and keys to access the instanced content, and, well, yes. Yet it's also kind of lame that ESO's new encounter designs have been so great lately, but the number of people who will be able to experience them is being restricted.

Hyperioxes · January 26

How have you found the difficulty of the Night Market? Please provide any additional context to the difficulty ratings below.

Well-Balanced when alone, Easy whenever there were more people, but I guess that's fine since you won't always have a crowd of people with you.

Did you play Night Market solo, with a random group, or an organized group (friends/guild members)?

Started solo and then my friends started joining, eventually we were a group of 4.

How did you enjoy the Event Zone? As this is a new event type, we would like to get any positives and negatives.

Most of the negatives I wanted to mention are already being fixed, like for example the loot lockout. I really disliked the immunity phases on that Werewolf Behemoth boss, it really doesn't need to play that Balorgh mechanic every 20% HP, you're spending majority of the fight in that mechanic instead of fighting. I really enjoyed the difficulty. I like that you can obtain Infinite Archive Verses for finishing various activities. I also remember getting a 25% Max HP buff from finishing a Skirmish in the Skittering zone, you can get extremely powerful by constantly finishing activities.

Did you try the different activities? If so, did you like them? Please let us know whatever you think worked and what missed the mark.

I tried the mini-games, I think the Spider one is a bit boring, feels like it's impossible to lose.

Do you have any other general feedback?

I think the trash respawns a bit too fast.

GuardianV · January 26

This is another reason why PC needs a built in voice chat for Group/Area chat. Not everyone wants to use a third party tool to talk to group members in the game. And especially for new players who have enough to learn, trying to communicate and coordinate everything through text is very difficult in combat. I think it's sad that the game makes it so it's easier to kick a player for not knowing mechanics than it is to tell them what to do.

MidnightDuel · January 26

Most people play video games for entertainment and to have fun, not to be forced to do mental gymnastics and be punished. The Night Market is neither entertaining or fun. It's far too complicated and the combat far too punishing for any but the most sadomasochistic players.

The Night Market's structure is overly complex, with convoluted progression and a faction system that limits choice and rewards. No guide or map is going to make any real sense of it either. The so-called introduction is confusing and leaves players even more unsure as to what to do next. The factions are pointless. Instead of motivating players to work together, factions will further fragment the player base and leave players regretting their choices.

The combat is harder than content for "all players" should be. Even for experience veteran dungeon and trial players, the bosses have too much health and everything in the Night Market does too much damage. While many players will want to go in and solo the quests and bosses, only organized groups will get anywhere. We ran a couple of the areas with our normal vet dungeon group and lost count of the player-death-toll to kill even one of the bosses. All of the fights took way too long, and no one wanted to hang around and do more. It wasn't fun for anyone.

Even though the 4-player and 12-player bosses no longer require keys on the PTS, there are still prerequisites to test these on the PTS. None of my player friends want to go back on the PTS to test, and it's doubtful we'll even do the Event at all on live. Consequently, I expect there will be numerous bugs that are never uncovered until it goes live. Apparently, this falls under the "experimental content" touted in the 2026 preview.

To get any rewards will require a grind far and above what happened with the Solstice Siege Camps. Given the difficulty of the combat and limited player testing on the PTS, the Night Market is another Writhing Wall in the making. In short, The Night Market is only going to ***-off players and drive more of them away to other games.

Lord_Hev · January 26

[*] How have you found the difficulty of the Night Market? Please provide any additional context to the difficulty ratings below.

Easy
Well-balanced
Difficult
Too difficult

[*]Did you play Night Market solo, with a random group, or an organized group (friends/guild members)?

I'll only be providing feedback on this as I didn't get a chance to fully explore the other aspects.

My friend and I explored the Sorrow's Friend district. I played tank, and my friend played dps with pale order mythic. Our builds were not optimized. I started out with a quickly put together hybridish tank build drakes rush and pyrebrand so i could add some dps and also provide us both with major heroism. I ran 3 spell dmg glyphs on my "tank". Trash packs were very basic(but fun!) comparable to what I would expect from a standard veteran group dungeon. After some acclimation we started chain pulling several packs to push ourselves. Deaths started happening on the brazen bosses as we took the time to learn the fight and how much damage we could endure while at the same time dealing with hyper-respawning add packs.(bug or feature?)

Our only real struggle happened on one particular trash pack with the Faceted Lich boss. We are seemingly forced to fight it in unfavorable terrain as whenever I tried to kite it out to more open area, it would either de-aggro, or we would have hyper-respawning add packs we just cleared, dogpile us making the fight more difficult then intended. As we "prog'd" this specific add pack + "boss"(it doesnt have brazen in the name but the lich had 8 million health so I assume is a boss.) the wandering boss(29 million health void lady lich) would join in. The only frustrating aspect of all this was the hyper-respawning adds that we constantly had to deal with as we learned the fight. Eventually I decided to throw on a more "proper" tank(drake rush + defending yokeda and triple block cost reductions) and I was able to easily handle the hyper-respawning adds, aggro the vast majority of them and maintain taunt on the wandering boss so we could get her out of the way... so we could return to progging the weaker lich boss(lol)

It was a 15-minute kill on the wandering boss. My friend died twice(everytime it was due to hyper-respawning add packs ambushing us.) but I was able to stay alive and tank them all and we secured the kill. Then we got our revenge on the lich boss and cleared that. And continued killing a few more brazen bosses with no issues. And we ended up killing the wandering boss again after she respawned(15 minute kill again as this time I died! But my dps friend was able to kite and stay alive with wandering boss aggro long enough for me to return and regain taunt, no wipe!!)

This was some of the most fun I've had, and I loved every moment even if the initial wipes were frustrating (hyper-respawning adds!!!!) It's difficult to give a full analysis due to the respawn rate of the add packs, this has to be a bug? The only other place I can think of where mobs respawn this quicky are Cyrodiil delve adds. I believe this should be adjusted. In some respects they added to the intensity of a boss fight making it really fun, but on the other hand they were fatiguing and we could not pause to chat in group chat about our experience... because the adds would literally just respawn right on top of us moments later....

For just the TWO of us with no hope of any outside help because it's pts and literally no one else was on, I would rate it as "difficult" but very very very PROGRESSABLE as all we had to do was make build and strategy adjustments to overcome challenges. Our wipes boiled down to either learning mechs(how much damage we could endure or standing in bad aoe and which aoes were one shot or not even for tank with 40k health) and hyper-respawning adds dogpiling during a boss fight. If we factor in the INTENDED population of a live server and anyone being able to join a boss fight ungrouped... I would rate the difficulty between EASY and WELL-BALANCED as this would be extremely variable depending on the number of players we could potentially have join-in uninvited.

code65536 · January 26

Gilded Bosses (4-person instances)

The Gilded bosses seem ok. As a seasoned dungeon/trial runner, all of the mechanics were immediately familiar. The incoming damage was mild, as expected (since there is no difficulty selection, it has to be balanced for mainstream consumption, and I think that it is), and the encounters all seemed pretty straightforward. I would say that, difficulty-wise, it feels comparable to--maybe a little easier than--veteran non-HM DLC dungeons.

There was also a familiar bug: As I reported years ago, in Scrivener's Hall, when the Entangler does its Web Pull on a player, the speed at which the player is pulled is subject to player speed bonuses such as Major and Minor Expedition. If someone who is pulled is under the effect of a Major Expedition skill such as Quick Cloak, they will be pulled in faster, which makes the mechanic more difficult as it reduces the time available to deal with this mechanic. You can most readily see this by having the tank slot rapids: observe the speed at which the player is being pulled, cast rapids, and then watch the pull speed up.

And since this behavior was never fixed for Scrivener's Hall, it was, as expected, also present here in the Night Market. As much as I enjoy trolling people by casting rapids during that mechanic, perhaps this is the time to finally address this thing.

Opulent Ordeal (12-person instance)

That was some of the most fun I've ever had in a 12-person "trial" in this game.

I got a little taste of it (without really understanding what was going on) in Hyperioxes's PUG group, and then I got a proper look at everything--at which point things finally made sense--with my own pre-scheduled group afterwards.

For people who want a quick overview of what's going on:

The group should be divided into 3 teams, each team responsible for one of the 3 areas of the map, since once you've used the traversal mechanism for that area, you are locked to that mechanism for the remainder of the encounter.

The main objective is to grab a ball in one area and deposit it in another area, but since each team can only enter their own area, this is a relay. The first group picks up the ball in their area, drop it off at a receptacle along the border of their area and the next area, the next team picks up that ball and does the same, and the final team picks it up and carries that ball to the final receptacle in their area.

This process of 3 teams relaying a ball through 3 areas is repeated 3 times until all 3 areas have acted as a "final receptacle", after which the 3 Opulent bosses spawn and the fight turns into a mostly conventional encounter.

The encounter does have a steep learning curve, and it took a number of pulls before I was able to fully understand what was happening, but once you understand it, it does make sense. And this encounter places a lot of emphasis on teamwork. A relay is, after all, a very team-oriented activity.

There are no DPS checks. No heal checks. The incoming damage is comfortably manageable. And these are all good things, because it means that the emphasis is squarely on teamwork and coordination, and I think all this makes for a very satisfying and enjoyable encounter.

This emphasis on teamwork does mean that you will almost certainly want voice comms. I can see this being totally doable by a bunch of normal, non-hardcore players in a social guild who are hanging out in voice chat together.

Keys

The biggest concern that I have is the key mechanism. I had suspected from last week that keys would be consumed after defeating an encounter, and indeed, they are. Which means that if you want to run the Opulent Ordeal a second time, you need to kill all 6 Argent bosses and all 3 Gilded bosses again, just to regain access to the Opulent Ordeal, and this is something that everyone in your group needs to do.

Honestly, I feel like that's asking a lot and I don't like the idea of keys being consumed.

(But to play Devil's Advocate, I suppose you could look at the key acquisition as a part of the trial itself. Think of the Argent bosses as the trash packs, the Gilded bosses as the intermediate bosses leading up to the final boss, and then the Opulent Ordeal as the final boss, and perhaps a 12-person group could schedule a raid session where you acquire the keys and then do Opulent all in that raid session. Still, I feel like that this is a bit much.)

Eyr0n · January 26

Finnally some fresh challenging content outside of raids and dungeons ! it feels great and im really lloking forward for it to come live.

Desiato · 1:43AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbPdpXs4JHg

Mods: I think this is essential feedback. Please don't action me because of the thumbnail text. It is not my video.

coop500 · 2:53AM

Desiato wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbPdpXs4JHg

Mods: I think this is essential feedback. Please don't action me because of the thumbnail text. It is not my video.

Cool, a callout bullying video instead of just letting folks provide their feedback for their own experiences.

Everyone's experience matters, not just endgamers and youtubers.

STUDLETON · 3:31AM

How have you found the difficulty of the Night Market?
Well-balanced
Trash is clearable with a little effort if solo and they de-aggro nicely if you're just trying to get around. Respawn rates are a little high though, can't stand still to check your inventory or quest log for long.
Bosses are soloable with more effort and preplanning but there was often other people around, and on live I expect it would be hard to find a boss alone. With a group they are fun but not overly challenging if you have a tank or some basic self preservation ability.

The dungeons and trial encounters are a little disappointing in combat difficulty, they feel like the Normal version. If Veteran and HM were available options then perhaps it would be more interesting.
Mechanics are clearly meant to be the challenge in the trial which was definitely fun to figure out, but after the orb phase and the 3 bosses came down it was not very engaging in terms of combat beyond keeping them apart to avoid the damage shields and looking for the occasional coloured damage soak area to stand in. Vet and HM combat difficulty would have been nice here, and if added then Normal could even be toned down a little to help the more casual players.

Did you play Night Market solo, with a random group, or an organized group (friends/guild members)?
Solo, tagging along with people going by and with a semi organised group for the trial.

It's an interesting take, not quite at the difficulty level in other other MMOs where world bosses can be genuinely challenging without somewhat organised groups, but anything more than the incredibly easy overland is good.
As an Event Zone, it feels like something to actually pay attention to and try, worth a lot more than the typical back to back "events" that are usually little more than an xp boost and seasonal quests to enable event ticket gathering for cosmetics and inventory-clogging reward boxes. This would be a real event.

Considering this seems to be the group content we are getting in place of new dungeons, it's a little sad to not have higher difficulties and trifecta achievements. I feel that dungeons have been some of the most well crafted pieces of group content that you can always go back to, so I would hope that new dungeons would continue alongside these events, if it is within the team's capacity.

Spearblade · 5:15AM

coop500 wrote: »

Desiato wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbPdpXs4JHg

Mods: I think this is essential feedback. Please don't action me because of the thumbnail text. It is not my video.

Cool, a callout bullying video instead of just letting folks provide their feedback for their own experiences.

Everyone's experience matters, not just endgamers and youtubers.

Hyperioxes provided actual data though. What sets he was using, DPS, etc...He specifically DID NOT use BIS gear, and a super user friendly heavy attack build. Ring of the Pale Order was really the only "obstacle" for a super casual, and it can definitely be worked around...

code65536 · 5:17AM

I feel like what the @Hyperioxes video in post #167 is actually demonstrating is how strong Pale Order is, when paired with a build that does decent AoE damage in AoE fights. It's certainly an accessible build, both in terms of acquisition and ease of use. But it still requires that people use a build like that (and, more importantly, to know that they should use a build like that).

Alright, let's back up a bit. I watched that video and, yea, it looks easy and his health bar stayed mostly full throughout. So if it's that easy, why are there a number of people struggling, I ask? I've only done the Night Market as a tank in a group, so I haven't yet experienced this as a solo DD, so let's give this a try!

Except I didn't want to do what Hyper did; I trust that if I were to use a Pale Order heavy attack build, I'd get the same results, so no point in wasting time on that. Instead, I went with my overland setup that I use for questing, harvesting, etc. It's a pure-class magblade (I cloak past everything in the overland) wearing circa-2019 False God and Mother's Sorrow with Wild Hunt as my mythic (again, questing and harvesting). And I quickly wiped to the trash in a manner similar to what people have described here.

Alright, let's put some more effort in. I put on Pale Order, and... I still wiped. Wait... what? Turns out that my Pale Order wasn't working, because when I checked my death recaps, there was no sign of the Pale Order heal, even though I had it equipped. Removing and re-equipping Pale Order fixed the problem. Until I died and it stopped working again. That's probably a bug.

Anyway, with Pale Order actually working, things were much better, and my health bar was in much better shape. But if I missed the dodge or block on a heavy attack, I'm dead. Or if I get CC'ed by a hackwing. Those Drylands hackwings are horrible.

The fact of the matter is that the amount of incoming damage is fairly high, and players who are solo need to have a way to deal with that incoming damage. Pale Order is an exceptionally strong option, so much so that Hyper used that instead of Oakensoul for his 1-bar heavy attack demo build.

Well, this answers my question of, "So if it's that easy, why are there a number of people struggling?" If people want to solo this, they need to come with a build that's tailored for soloing. That almost certainly means Pale Order. Probably not Oakensoul. Fancy gear or exceptional player skill isn't as important as having the right kind of build.

In any case, getting rofl-stomped by the trash is definitely a real thing for someone who isn't properly prepared. But so is the ability get through it solo, if the build is right.

Soarora · 6:15AM

code65536 wrote: »

Well, this answers my question of, "So if it's that easy, why are there a number of people struggling?" If people want to solo this, they need to come with a build that's tailored for soloing. That almost certainly means Pale Order. Probably not Oakensoul. Fancy gear or exceptional player skill isn't as important as having the right kind of build.

In any case, getting rofl-stomped by the trash is definitely a real thing for someone who isn't properly prepared. But so is the ability get through it solo, if the build is right.

This is a big thing here. It’s about adapting to the content instead of wanting to adapt the content. Night Market is at minimum veteran level small group content, it’s not the same as soloing an overland event or a normal dungeon. My warden DPS, who I also use for battlegrounds, the rare normal dungeon solo, and IA (arcs 1-3, floor parsing at higher arcs) got shredded by the trash… my warden DPS would also get obliterated by veteran dungeon bosses. He’s not a solo build, I’m not a solo player, I don’t know how to build a solo build so it’s understandable I’d get shredded.

My main takeaway from the forums this past 2 weeks has been that if trials were added to the game for the first time now, there would be outrage. At least this is more reasonably soloable, as shown by the people who were able to solo, but I don’t think all group content *needs* to be soloable.

To ZOS, my endgame dungeon guild thus far has been really enjoying the content. While it’s sad to have no dungeons this year (hoping for 2027!!), I’m excited to have something that we can possibly do as a reoccurring event to bring the guild together (especially since typically clashing playstyles—such as full burn versus mechanic-focused—seem to mesh perfectly well in the “overland” portion!). Thank you for creating this.

YandereGirlfriend · 6:16AM

The game is already well-saturated with trivially easy questing content and so it is refreshing to see the Night Market... not go down that path. I am quite excited for this content to hit Live in a way that I absolutely never am with new overland zones.

Not all content is for every player. Casual questing in zones is definitely not for me. Companions are not for me. Tales of Tribute is not for me. Housing is not really for me. As a PvP main player, about 90% of the game's modern development output has been on content that I do not really interact with at all. But, at the same time, I do not begrudge that Companions exist or call to snatch them away from the players that enjoy them.

So, with respect to some of the voices in this thread, perhaps this content simply isn't for you. That's fine. There's a giant game outside of it that is for you and that you can enjoy. Players who desire more difficult content are getting something and that is okay. There aren't any dungeons this year. I'm not even sure that there is a trial outside of Night Market. There isn't any new Infinite Archive expansion. This is literally IT for PvE players seeking a challenge. Please don't try to snatch that from them.

not_Dezza · 7:04AM

coop500 wrote: »

Desiato wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbPdpXs4JHg

Mods: I think this is essential feedback. Please don't action me because of the thumbnail text. It is not my video.

Cool, a callout bullying video instead of just letting folks provide their feedback for their own experiences.

Everyone's experience matters, not just endgamers and youtubers.

how are you able to turn your PC on, than share your thoughts on forum but not able to watch at least 1 minute of video before sharing your thoughts on forum?

Enemoriana · 7:20AM

With EU characters on PTS, I tried again, now with my actual character (because maybe I missed something when repeating build on new character and comparison wasn't correct). No, not much difference.

And I still do not think that time-limited open zone with maximum of 36 players - so average is less than 12 players per district - should feel harder than a vet trial (even the simplest one), with Market never officially claimed as hardest vet content. On live there will be a lot of weaker players (I'm far from being strong... and still see a lot of weaker players). Aaaand that also means that in each instance will be less room for I-can-solo-vet-trial-with-one-button players.

Yet again, I'm speaking about mobs difficulty, not "serve platinum boss on a platter for me".

Turtle_Bot · 7:24AM

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for the all new Night Market Event Zone. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

@ZOS_Kevin I've finally had a chance to test the Night Market now that EU characters have been ported over and it feels very close to perfect difficulty level, even for someone like myself who is more of a PvPer and mostly does PvE casually using my outdated Oakensoul Heavy Attack build that I haven't updated in years.

How do you feel about the distribution of rewards during this event zone?
Can't really say specifically here without grinding it out. I did hear/see you guys wanted to increase the drop rate and imo more rewards for playing the game is always a good thing.
How have you found the difficulty of the Night Market? Please provide any additional context to the difficulty ratings below.
- Easy
- Well-balanced
- Difficult
- Too difficult
My vote here is somewhere between difficult and well balanced. The monsters are about the right power level, hitting hard enough to require engaging with the games core combat systems rather than just steamrolling over everything (even on my outdated pure sorc heavy attack oakensoul build), but not so hard as to feel impossible to complete. The only issue I have is the constant CC spam from the trash packs such as the cliff racers that gets frustrating to constantly be dealing with as a solo player. Being in a group makes the trash packs significantly easier to deal with, especially if the group has a tank.
Did you play Night Market solo, with a random group, or an organized group (friends/guild members)?
I played it primarily solo for the most part, some random other players joined me for some fights making them significantly easier to complete, but otherwise I was solo (not even companion).
How did you enjoy the Event Zone? As this is a new event type, we would like to get any positives and negatives.
Seems interesting, especially as running in a group. As outlined above, my main negative experience was the constant CC spam from the trash packs that made combat feel very frustrating to play solo when getting chain CC'd with stuns, into interrupts into additional stuns into additional interrupts.
Did you try the different activities? If so, did you like them? Please let us know whatever you think worked and what missed the mark.
I liked the puzzles, it was nice to see some non-combat things that also touches back on the puzzle aspect we had in the single player elder scrolls games.
How do you like the new Patrons?
Indifferent, nothing drew me in for them, but nothing turned me off either.
Did anything not function to your expectations?
N/A
Do you have any other general feedback?
My main feedback would be to tone down the constant crowd control spam from the trash packs scattered around the Night Market. It's fine to have CC in every pack, but getting spammed with it constantly just makes the combat feel very stop/start, especially since there's multiple types of CC (stun, interrupt and immobilize) in every pack and each type has it's own internal cooldown making it feel even more stop/start.

For some context, here's the build I was using to solo the trash packs within the Night Market:

1 Bar build, using Oakensoul, Sorcerer class (pure), Lightning staff heavy attack.
Skills:

Gear:

Some Notes:
Mundus is Shadow (Crit Damage + Crit Healing)
Food is Jewels of Misrule (max health + tri-recoveries, it's what I had on hand at the time)
All armor enchants are Max Magicka
Weapon Enchant is "Hardened" or the damage shield enchant
Jewelry enchants are all spell damage
Slotted champion points:
Blue:
Arcane Supremecy (max mag)
Fighting Finesse (crit damage/healing)
Master at arms (direct damage done)
Weapons Expert (increased light/heavy attack damage)
Red:
Siphoning spells (restore mag on kill)
Slippery (1 free break free every 21 seconds)
Boundless Vitality (max health)
Celerity (movement speed)
No Addons used (I don't have them installed in my PTS folder, so they are disabled by default on PTS)
No Scribing Skills
No Sub-classing

Emeratis · 8:28AM

I'm back again with more testing thoughts and feedback. Today I did the Opulent Ordeal with two different groups, the first as a dps copy of my main and the second as a pureclass dk healer. Overall, I enjoyed it very much.

I like how the Opulent Ordeal favors mechanics and teamwork over something more parse heavy. I prefer mechanics heavy fights that are fun and rewarding like this over a stack and parse fight anyday. I also liked the flow of the fight, how the mechanics would weave together between one another, and how it felt like everyone had an equally important part to play for the success of the run. Even as we were figuring things out and poking at things to test "for science," both groups I ran with seemed very jovial and it felt like everyone was having fun.

I do have some minor criticisms though and one major one. For the major one, the logistics of the entry to the Opulent Ordeal seem pretty brutal. I can easily and comfortably farm out all the keys and runs I want, but many of the players I do group content with cannot. There is a portion of my progs that only log on for trials and have no interest in grinding out an overland zone to access one. I also have friends I do dungeons with that have limited time to game due to life circumstances. Others have pointed out how while the Night Market is very fun and enjoyable, it is not a 1:1 substitute for traditional instanced group content. I want to do a lot of the Night Market and everything it has to offer when it hits live. I am greatly enjoying the content personally. As it currently is supposed to work, having keys be consumed upon clear feels frustrating. Similar to how the Writhing Wall event felt frustrating when Eastern Solstice was locked behind it for weeks, having the 4 and 12 man instanced content be accessed by a bit of a grind (that you've thankfully already made better, thank you for that, truly) and then keys consumed upon clear and need to be grinded again feels bad. If the keys were permanent access or even able to be given or traded to other players it might feel better. I just don't want to personally do less of something I enjoy because some of the people I run with can't (or in some cases lets be honest won't) grind out the keys as much as I can or want to. Again, I don't expect it for free, and I also am fine with the Night Market having a progression system, but I would like to see some of what I mentioned taken into account if possible for the keys.

My other concerns relate to the trial and accessibility and visibility and confusion. I'm a little sleepy so going to keep them concise:

The announcements for the split flash too briefly. In the chaos and newness of things it was very easy for part of the group to miss it. Maybe a few seconds longer would be nice for it?
The Incandescent Pods in the center area are small and many players in the runs I was in were finding it hard to find them when needed. I do find the small buds cute, but this could maybe be fixed by increased size or glow or something?
Sometimes the glow on the points seemed inconsistent visually. Usually at least one person could see but the one in the middle upper area for the sand region was hard to see without a certain camera angle.
Code graciously mentioned the longstanding spider pull bug. As a bosmer main who often has major and minor expedition up, please fix this and save meeeeeee (in both scrivener's and night market) from this weird interaction/bug.

Closing thoughts are I really really enjoyed the Opulent Ordeal. I am really enjoying the Night Market overall. I know many people compare it to Craglorn but it actually reminds me of IC close to it's release and how wild and fun and exciting that felt for me. Overall I'm liking the lore and atmosphere of the Night Market in a similar way. I would really like to see this be permanent. I also wonder given the lorebooks if the Night Market might have an ever evolving ecosystem with cycling wings as referenced in "The True Nature of the Night Market." I know it may depend on how the Night Market does on live and feedback given but if that is even remotely in the cards I would love to see us explore the Night Market and the mysteries behind it as players and see even more of it's possibilities and multitudes.

DeathStalker · 1:31PM

I don't know if this is the right place for this post or not. About the new house in the night market. Is there any chance to untie how you unlock the rooms in the house from the night market? I'm already dreading the torturous nightmare of having to group up and deal with people to experience this content. Having the house tied to the zone means I'll have to suffer longer, and that doesn't even cover if this event is 1 time only. How will those who couldn't get the house fully unlocked get every room open if the night market event is 1 tiime only?

code65536 · 1:40PM

Some specific feedback for the Opulent Ordeal:

First, there is a huge discrepancy in the relative difficulty of the three relic-specific main room mechanics:

The easiest is the spider pull. Anyone who can use the grapple can save them and do so instantly. Easy peasy.
Then there's the flame shapers. For that, you need to be able to kill the flame shaper quickly. If the member of the Drylands team that's left behind in the main room is a healer or tank, they're not going to get that down in time. So you gotta make sure that you leave a good DD behind in the main room, if you want that flame shaper to die before it gets too much damage out.
- Suggestion: Reduce the flame shapers health a little
And by far the worst is the Veiled Execution. First, compared to the first two, that tiny little rift is much harder to see amidst all the stuff going on. Big red spider spawns, and everyone can easily see it, but the little rift? It's often the case that people don't even notice it until it has started tethering someone. Second, the little mini light pods in the main room are really hard to see. Their color is too similar to the color of the floor, they are small, and so when there's other visual noise, they can be really, really hard to spot. Most times, I notice that there is one nearby only because the interaction prompt appears in the UI. Third, the timings often don't line up very well. The light pods are often on the ground when there isn't a Dark Shadow, and when a Dark Shadow is tethering, there often isn't a light pod on the ground.
- Suggestion: Significantly increase the amount of time a pod remains on the ground after an enemy drops it, and if possible, do something to improve the visibility of this mechanic

Second, the bosses themselves have too much health. The fun part of the trial is the relay. Once that's done and the bosses engage us directly, it's a pretty conventional encounter. It won't really hurt to shorten this part of the encounter a little. This part of the encounter isn't difficult, but it does feel like it takes too long.

Third, please add a sound effect for the windup of the Essence explosions ("bombs", as we called them). (Or, if there is already a sound effect, please make it more obvious.) There is a pretty noticeable and distinct sound effect for the book explosion during the first boss of Scrivener's Hall, and it would be great if that sound effect was used here too. These are mechanics that people need to react quickly to, and visuals can be more easily missed than sounds.

coop500 · 2:01PM

code65536 wrote: »

I feel like what the @Hyperioxes video in post #167 is actually demonstrating is how strong Pale Order is, when paired with a build that does decent AoE damage in AoE fights. It's certainly an accessible build, both in terms of acquisition and ease of use. But it still requires that people use a build like that (and, more importantly, to know that they should use a build like that).

Alright, let's back up a bit. I watched that video and, yea, it looks easy and his health bar stayed mostly full throughout. So if it's that easy, why are there a number of people struggling, I ask? I've only done the Night Market as a tank in a group, so I haven't yet experienced this as a solo DD, so let's give this a try!

Except I didn't want to do what Hyper did; I trust that if I were to use a Pale Order heavy attack build, I'd get the same results, so no point in wasting time on that. Instead, I went with my overland setup that I use for questing, harvesting, etc. It's a pure-class magblade (I cloak past everything in the overland) wearing circa-2019 False God and Mother's Sorrow with Wild Hunt as my mythic (again, questing and harvesting). And I quickly wiped to the trash in a manner similar to what people have described here.

Alright, let's put some more effort in. I put on Pale Order, and... I still wiped. Wait... what? Turns out that my Pale Order wasn't working, because when I checked my death recaps, there was no sign of the Pale Order heal, even though I had it equipped. Removing and re-equipping Pale Order fixed the problem. Until I died and it stopped working again. That's probably a bug.

Anyway, with Pale Order actually working, things were much better, and my health bar was in much better shape. But if I missed the dodge or block on a heavy attack, I'm dead. Or if I get CC'ed by a hackwing. Those Drylands hackwings are horrible.

The fact of the matter is that the amount of incoming damage is fairly high, and players who are solo need to have a way to deal with that incoming damage. Pale Order is an exceptionally strong option, so much so that Hyper used that instead of Oakensoul for his 1-bar heavy attack demo build.

Well, this answers my question of, "So if it's that easy, why are there a number of people struggling?" If people want to solo this, they need to come with a build that's tailored for soloing. That almost certainly means Pale Order. Probably not Oakensoul. Fancy gear or exceptional player skill isn't as important as having the right kind of build.

In any case, getting rofl-stomped by the trash is definitely a real thing for someone who isn't properly prepared. But so is the ability get through it solo, if the build is right.

Thank you for investigating more clearly instead of just insults. I'm tired of people pretending I can't play just because I'm having a different experience than they are.

Your study helps a lot, because Pale Order basically does heal for you if you just deal a decent amount of damage, which trivializes a pretty major aspect in soloing things. I don't use it much because I like being able to do group content on the fly, and as someone who plays healer fairly often, Pale Order can be an annoying ring to deal with from group members.

For the Night Market, it sounds like Pale Order is the main deciding factor between 'you can't even block attacks, lame-o!' and 'this is actually really difficult'.

There is nuance here. People with Pale Order should try running without Pale Order and see how it goes. Night Market is NOT 'normal dungeon difficulty' and nobody is realistically asking for it to be 'overland braindead easy'. But people are going to freak out and throw hands regardless.

I actually barely play Overland myself because it's too easy and will actually put me to sleep, but that flies in the face of the narrative of 'I'm just used to overland and can't play, and that must be why I'm having a hard time with Night Market'.

I repeat, everyone deserves to share feedback, everyone deserves to be able to provide their own input and experiences. Currently, one side is trying to shut out and silence the other with insults, accusations and manipulation towards the devs as to why our feedback isn't as valuable. Meanwhile I'm being told that endgame players aren't toxic...

Sorry, but I don't believe it, and never will.

BananaBender · 2:50PM

code65536 wrote: »

I feel like what the @Hyperioxes video in post #167 is actually demonstrating is how strong Pale Order is, when paired with a build that does decent AoE damage in AoE fights. It's certainly an accessible build, both in terms of acquisition and ease of use. But it still requires that people use a build like that (and, more importantly, to know that they should use a build like that).

Alright, let's back up a bit. I watched that video and, yea, it looks easy and his health bar stayed mostly full throughout. So if it's that easy, why are there a number of people struggling, I ask? I've only done the Night Market as a tank in a group, so I haven't yet experienced this as a solo DD, so let's give this a try!

Except I didn't want to do what Hyper did; I trust that if I were to use a Pale Order heavy attack build, I'd get the same results, so no point in wasting time on that. Instead, I went with my overland setup that I use for questing, harvesting, etc. It's a pure-class magblade (I cloak past everything in the overland) wearing circa-2019 False God and Mother's Sorrow with Wild Hunt as my mythic (again, questing and harvesting). And I quickly wiped to the trash in a manner similar to what people have described here.

Alright, let's put some more effort in. I put on Pale Order, and... I still wiped. Wait... what? Turns out that my Pale Order wasn't working, because when I checked my death recaps, there was no sign of the Pale Order heal, even though I had it equipped. Removing and re-equipping Pale Order fixed the problem. Until I died and it stopped working again. That's probably a bug.

Anyway, with Pale Order actually working, things were much better, and my health bar was in much better shape. But if I missed the dodge or block on a heavy attack, I'm dead. Or if I get CC'ed by a hackwing. Those Drylands hackwings are horrible.

The fact of the matter is that the amount of incoming damage is fairly high, and players who are solo need to have a way to deal with that incoming damage. Pale Order is an exceptionally strong option, so much so that Hyper used that instead of Oakensoul for his 1-bar heavy attack demo build.

Well, this answers my question of, "So if it's that easy, why are there a number of people struggling?" If people want to solo this, they need to come with a build that's tailored for soloing. That almost certainly means Pale Order. Probably not Oakensoul. Fancy gear or exceptional player skill isn't as important as having the right kind of build.

In any case, getting rofl-stomped by the trash is definitely a real thing for someone who isn't properly prepared. But so is the ability get through it solo, if the build is right.

This highlights a problem I ran into when testing the Nightmarket. Playing alone is way easier than grouping with pugs, which kinda goes against the idea of the entire zone. Sets like Pale Order or Azureblight get significantly weaker if you group up, and while it's worth the trade off when playing in a group which offers additional buffs and heals etc, that's not the case in a pug group. The easiest way me an my friend found to duo every single boss in the zone was to play together but never group. I don't really know what would be the best approach to address this problem though.