Official Night Market Feedback Thread

CatalinaWineMixer2 · May 3

allochthons wrote: »

Please change it, so we don't have to regather the keys every time we want to run the dungeons (much less the trial). Getting people synched up is extremely difficult.

If this were to happen, everone would just run it solely with their guilds or rostered teams. The idea is to have us running with real Pug groups. If not, you really will be farming keys to have it that way. I like that people have to play outside of their groups/guilds/friend lists to do this event

Varana · May 3

z32 wrote: »

This is not an event where people get together and grouping is encouraged. The truth is, entire overland zone is turned into mass trial. ... The only way to fix it is to turn overland zone back to overland with overland difficulties, overland bosses and skirmishes to world boss difficulties and set zone player cap to overland player cap.

Which overland zone? This is not an overland zone, and has never been advertised as such. They've bodged their announcements around this very thoroughly, but that was not one of the angles they sold this as.

RemnantFantasy wrote: »

As the big 'ta-daah' moment for Seasons, why this? Why launch something that is going to so heavily divide your players? I'm perfectly happy to ignore it and go on my merry way as I have done before (as will others). But personally I think something a little more toned down, perhaps with some content that was difficult (but doable) solo might have been a better approach. I know that seasons allow for 'narrow-band' content and I get that it isn't going to be for everyone, but kicking off your 'new thing' with something that effectively 'locks out' a significant portion of your players because of the difficulty and type of content just seems a bit wrong-headed to me.

That's the problem with marketing these small content packages. For some reason, PR teams feel the need to sell everything as absolutely necessary for literally everyone under the sun and the next best thing since sliced bread, the centre piece of their entire life (future included) and an eternally memorable event that they will tell tales about to their grandchildren ...

This is not the "big 'ta-daah' moment for Seasons". This is one of a long stream of "big 'ta-daah' moments" that will come this year. As Tom of Hyrule said in one of the many earlier pages, they could previously focus their hype effort on the chapter of the year, and there was something in it for everyone. Now that "for everyone" is spread out piecemeal over the year, but the hype machine doesn't stop and runs into overdrive.

Looking at the Night Market as a fancy version of the spring dungeon pack, that's a more appropriate comparison.

tomfant · May 3

In general I like the Night Market. But it needs some polishing.

difficulty
Is IMHO in a good spot. Trash packs are solo-able, bosses hardly so. Or by spending a lot of time in a tanky build. A coordinated dungeon group of 4 seems for me the sweet spot between challenge level and timing of the boss fights. Larger groups just zerg everything down quickly.

oddities
This one is odd... While the spider puzzle is almost impossible alone, the lights and boulder puzzles are better done solo. Most people joining in just activate things randomly which is annoying and causes frustration.
The races are also odd. The one in the parch is very hard to find. As the other two races are presented in an obvious way, I was looking for something similarly obvious in the parch. How can I know it hides behind a random door? In a zone that doesn't have any other interactable doors?

factions and competition
That whole competition thing between factions is stupid. As many have said already there is no real competition, it's just number of people. Why not making all factions available for everyone without the faction lock? So, doing the daily quest today for the Ruckus and tomorrow for the 1000 Eyes...
Most of the confusion around the ability to group with players from other faction wouldn't exist without the faction lock.

Please stop the stupid competition thing. The past attempts were always a disaster (looking at you writhing wall server competition) and this one is only slightly better. In the end we want to play together.

population per instance
Going in solo you sometimes don't see other players for 30min. That's fine for certain activities as outlined above. But combat is always easier with other players around. So, either increase the pop cap per instance significiantly or introduce a way to see where other players are in my instance. The latter would increase the probability to form softstacks quite a bit and would allow casual solo players to follow groups around and get quests done more easily.

misc
I think the faction favour counter on the HUD is useless. There is no point in having this information visible at all times. It's enough to see that on the F5 Night Market page.
I'd like to have another/additional promt to bring the F5 page up, preferably a propper integration into the menue. For instance as a subcategory in the journal.

DenverRalphy · May 3

tomfant wrote: »

oddities
This one is odd... While the spider puzzle is almost impossible alone, the lights and boulder puzzles are better done solo. Most people joining in just activate things randomly which is annoying and causes frustration.
The races are also odd. The one in the parch is very hard to find. As the other two races are presented in an obvious way, I was looking for something similarly obvious in the parch. How can I know it hides behind a random door? In a zone that doesn't have any other interactable doors?

If you have the faction daily quest for races, the quest markers make the Parch races incredibly easy to find. One of which is right at the entrance to the district and can be accessed aggro free. It's also my go-to race since it's easy to complete in a handful of seconds.

RemnantFantasy · May 3

Varana wrote: »

This is not the "big 'ta-daah' moment for Seasons". This is one of a long stream of "big 'ta-daah' moments that will come this year.

I understand it's a long series of 'ta-daah' moments, but when you completely overhaul and change your release cadence, the 'first' true content you drop automatically becomes your biggest moment.

A lot of people were sceptical when the change from expansions to seasons was announced (even those of us who are used to the seasonal cadence of games like Diablo and Path of Exile). I'm not saying that the Night Market shouldn't exist, I'm just puzzled that this is what was chosen as the first seasonal content. The chance to prove that the seasonal model can work - and what comes out of the blocks is something that divides your player base due to the way is is perceived by the players.

Did the way it was marketed play a part? Sure - they've basically taken the marketing strategy for expansions and done the same thing for this. It really doesn't matter whether you like it or hate it (I'm hopping in to help guild mates occasionally when they need it, but I'm not going out of my way to do it - I don't like the content and I don't particularly enjoy it, but I'm not going to ignore a guild mate asking for help). Whether you see it as 'a dungeon pack', 'setup for high geared trial groups', or the best content come out in ESO for five years, it is highly divisive, and from what I've seen over the last two days on PSEU people aren't exactly rushing off to do it.

It's hard work, it's intensive, and for me getting 'rewarded' with a couple of bits of gear that I can easily get from overland bosses in Wrothgar after two hours of getting my butt handed to me by trash mobs because I spawned on the other side of the map from the people I'm trying to help isn't equal to the amount of effort I have to put in.

method__01 · May 3

Vraedlich wrote: »

And don't forget to do it again after Monday so you can actually loot the Trophy Furnishing/Bust.

excuse me ,what? why th i must grind again ? finding a group to complete was a nightmare and now i must do again?

Vixrow · May 3

method__01 wrote: »

Vraedlich wrote: »

And don't forget to do it again after Monday so you can actually loot the Trophy Furnishing/Bust.

excuse me ,what? why th i must grind again ? finding a group to complete was a nightmare and now i must do again?

Yep, we've entered peak live service style fomo content : you will have to play everyday for minimal returns with rewards delivered in drip-feed over the weeks. That or burn yourself out to oblivion, ultimately pushing you away from the game altogther if repeated too frequently

Wait for the nerfs that are bound to happen and play something else in the meantime folks.
I know I will. Can't navigate the zone on my own = can't be bothered to care

Anyone who like the content as it is though, have fun!

CatalinaWineMixer2 · May 3

This will be my second post towards the Night Market. We just completed the trial in there. Wow!

Its one of the most fun things Ive ever done in Eso! 12 complete strangers managed to figure our way through something we all had no idea about😎 This event enhances Group Play! Its not about dps or the supports wearing the same sets, its actually about mechanics! Mechanics you can't cheat your way out of! And actually having to work as a team! Without gatekeeping!💪

I will admit that the objectives and some of the tasks could be explained perhaps a bit more concerning the Night Market, but the truth is, if you work with others, it speaks for itself!

They finally found a way to make people from all levels and playstyles have an even footing with success dependent upon team cooperation! Please, more of this!

People who were not otherwise engaged in our guilds are coming out of the woodworking to participate! I can hardly believe it! Thank you Zos for adding these kinds of events! We have needed it for a long time and this is an excellent start. I will add more feedback as more of us progress the event.

CAB_Life · May 3

CatalinaWineMixer2 wrote: »

This will be my second post towards the Night Market. We just completed the trial in there. Wow!

Its one of the most fun things Ive ever done in Eso! 12 complete strangers managed to figure our way through something we all had no idea about😎 This event enhances Group Play! Its not about dps or the supports wearing the same sets, its actually about mechanics! Mechanics you can't cheat your way out of! And actually having to work as a team! Without gatekeeping!💪

I will admit that the objectives and some of the tasks could be explained perhaps a bit more concerning the Night Market, but the truth is, if you work with others, it speaks for itself!

They finally found a way to make people from all levels and playstyles have an even footing with success dependent upon team cooperation! Please, more of this!

People who were not otherwise engaged in our guilds are coming out of the woodworking to participate! I can hardly believe it! Thank you Zos for adding these kinds of events! We have needed it for a long time and this is an excellent start. I will add more feedback as more of us progress the event.

The trial was quite good, one of my favorites actually. But the paucity of rewards (no perfected gear, no trial specific gear even, no real incentive) means I probably won’t do it again unless asked.

licenturion · May 3

CAB_Life wrote: »

The trial was quite good, one of my favorites actually. But the paucity of rewards (no perfected gear, no trial specific gear even, no real incentive) means I probably won’t do it again unless asked.

Yeah, I just had a no death clear of the trial but since the rewards are so lacklustre I now feel like the event is done for me, even though there is 45 days. I wish they upped the rewards for hard content like 10x.

That has always been a serious issue for ZOS. They release hard endgame style content but the people who this content is designed for already have all those old sets. They should have thought of that and made it more worthwhile.

The only event that I felt was worthwhile in rewards was the anniversary event 2 years ago.

anadandy · May 3

More feedback. I played yesterday on my healer and it was crazy fun, like old school really need a healer days. Actually had a couple people in our pug call out props for the healer performance (there were two of us) after a Calamity - that almost never happens. So I encourage any healers to get out there, grab that spider carnival game flame aura for extra passive damage and have fun.

Ashjunkie · May 3

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned... but the quests inside the different areas... Why exactly can't we share them? It would be a lot easier to keep groups going to the right places if we could just share these. It's extremely annoying.

Also, I think people have mentioned how the quest markers are annoying. You have to really be on them and sometimes they appear in front of you suddenly and they weren't there at first.

Please fix these things before next time.

z32 · May 3

Varana wrote: »

z32 wrote: »

This is not an event where people get together and grouping is encouraged. The truth is, entire overland zone is turned into mass trial. ... The only way to fix it is to turn overland zone back to overland with overland difficulties, overland bosses and skirmishes to world boss difficulties and set zone player cap to overland player cap.

Which overland zone? This is not an overland zone, and has never been advertised as such. They've bodged their announcements around this very thoroughly, but that was not one of the angles they sold this as.
. . . . . .
Looking at the Night Market as a fancy version of the spring dungeon pack, that's a more appropriate comparison.

Do not be coy, you perfectly understand what overland zone I am talking about. NM has typical design like any other zone: City, you exit it and end up in overland zone that has dungeon and trial. ZOS was very vague about what NM is but they claimed it will encourage grouping, not that it will be trial zone with 12 people group requirement. Please do not say it is a "dungeon pack", dungeon can be done with 4 people, we all perfectly know it is not true for NM.

As I said, I totally expect that elitists like you will want everything for themselves only even if you do not need it. Those curated sets that you do not care about would be so good for new players, but they are out their rich. Those furnishings are very valued for players who are into housing and fashion but again, they are out of their rich. This is so cruel that some people openly admitted that they cried (and how many did not write that they cried?) but again, you do not care, you only sneer and calling them names:

coop500 wrote: »

. . . .
This would help immensely and is mostly all what the 'toxic casual crybabies' are asking for.

This is perfectly shows who you are and what kind of group you represent: no compassion, no empathy, everything for themselves. nothing for the rest. Too bad that ZOS is siding with you.

Poss · May 3

I’ve played NM a little bit more since my first post here so here’s a slightly in-depth analysis with what I’m feeling.

Difficulty: I’m not completely against the idea of this being hard. If anything, the difficulty is refreshing considering how mind-numbingly easy overland is. I think the real issue here is the fact the entire zone is time-limited. Casual players who feel compelled to grab every achievement, set item, Favour required to unlock the bank etc will become frustrated especially with the chaos of how groups work here—which leads me onto my next issue.

Grouping and Instances: The zone almost requires you to group. I’m sure there are plenty of players who claim they can solo everything. But for casual players, it’s a necessity. But grouping is chaotic, you cannot share quests so you’re faced with 12 people all with different quests, running around mindlessly trying to complete different tasks, looking for propaganda to burn. I do strongly believe quests should work in a similar way to IC where if you have the same quest as others in your group, the progression is group-based not individual. This would alleviate some of the pressure. And then there’s the instances. I’m not going to delve into it though since there’s already hundreds of comments complaining that the instances are too small. But they’re right. Thirty six players spread across the whole zone is way too small.

cmetzger93 · May 3

method__01 wrote: »

Vraedlich wrote: »

And don't forget to do it again after Monday so you can actually loot the Trophy Furnishing/Bust.

excuse me ,what? why th i must grind again ? finding a group to complete was a nightmare and now i must do again?

Yeah there is a bug where the trophy doesn't drop on the first kill so if you want that you will have to run it again after the hotfix tomorrow which is the laziest way to fix this rather than just awarding players who have already completed it the trophy. I'm going to open a ticket after the hotfix and see if they will award it since I already did it and not super excited about going back.

Sithilid · May 3

Average Joe player here, Re: Night Market from a casual mostly solo player.

Too confusing, too hard to solo, no real incentive to try again in its current state.

carbonwing · May 3

I just want to say, I love the night market as it is. As someone who enjoys vet trials, but hm is often too difficult, I feel exactly at home.
With the difficulty as it is you are actually forced to group up, stay together and rescue your group mates from mobs. And that feels great. It's the only zone where this is the case atm, so please don't nerf it. For those who like it more casual there are 20+ other zones. With a player base as diverse as ESOs, not every content can be for everyone.
I imagine craglorn felt a bit the same in the old days. Now it is more of a somewhat challenging solo content and probably that is good too.
Also, have a lower difficulty option would be counter productive I think, because then people just farm argent bosses on normal to get the keys and dailies faster. Who is doing vet dungeon dailies for instance? So then we would have trouble finding groups.
Antiquity drop rates are also very good, esp. compared to the ridiculously low rates elsewhere.

The trial is very cool as well.

The grouping is a bit chaotic, yes. Aside from the group finder bugs(see below), I think that is at least partly on players though. I'm really surprised how many people join a gold dungeon boss group without having the proper keys despite me saying "have keys and relics" in the description.
Maybe this key mechanism could be explained in a future article, because it seems to confuse a lot of players.

There are also a few things that I think could be fixed or improved:
* The group finder is often bugged, when you try to enforce roles, the +/- buttons are greyed out (I'm on PC EU)
* Quest sharing is bugged sometimes not allowing me to accept quests. Yes, it works via notifications, but I think hardly anyone knows this.
* There are quite some desyncs in abilities during large battles. More players in an instance would probably make this even worse and I don't want a lag such as on gray host. Though I agree in principle that a somewhat larger cap would be nice.
* Hunt mechanic in moloch argent boss appears too often and you have to trap him too many times. This feels boring/annoying.
* The trade bar drops feel like a joke. Getting 5 trade bars from the trial after defeating at least 9 bosses to get there is completely disproportonate to 300 trade bars for eating cake during the anniversary event. I think 5 or 10 times as many would be more appropriate.

GuardianV · May 3

jristaub17_ESO wrote: »

I have only had three days playing here, so I'm not ready to make a full report yet.

BIGGEST SINGLE issue I have run into, though, so far, is the population cap. There is NO ONE around, in any instance, unless you group via Group Finder, and jump to the instance where the group is. Then, there is usually just that group there.

Yesterday when I went in I ran the whole loop through all 3 invisible the whole time so I didn't have to stop and fight anyone and I only say 1 other person in 1 of the markets and no one in the other 2. There were more people in the lobby than in the markets. Not sure if that counts as part of the population cap or if it is counting companions as players and cutting that in half too. I've gone in multiple times each day and never seen 29 other players in any 1 market.

GuardianV · May 3

Varana wrote: »

z32 wrote: »

This is not an event where people get together and grouping is encouraged. The truth is, entire overland zone is turned into mass trial. ... The only way to fix it is to turn overland zone back to overland with overland difficulties, overland bosses and skirmishes to world boss difficulties and set zone player cap to overland player cap.

Which overland zone? This is not an overland zone, and has never been advertised as such. They've bodged their announcements around this very thoroughly, but that was not one of the angles they sold this as.

I don't this the difficulty is the problem. Having hard content is fine. If this was just like another zone where would the appeal be? Also which zone? There are zones that already have much harder world bosses than others. Also if the made it open word difficulty then anyone in a group would kill things way too fast. This is balanced for a group and balanced quite well for a group. I have 0 problem with the difficulty. My problem is that I can never find other people to group with. It would be like going into a trial and saying it should be balanced lower.

GuardianV · May 3

* The trade bar drops feel like a joke. Getting 5 trade bars from the trial after defeating at least 9 bosses to get there is completely disproportonate to 300 trade bars for eating cake during the anniversary event. I think 5 or 10 times as many would be more appropriate.[/quote]

When I got this I had to think back about which currency trade bars were now. 5 trade bars is now the equivalent of 5% of one event ticket. Which isn't nothing for doing something you were going to do anyway, but it would be like if they gave you 1 Crown.

GuardianV · May 3

Meowzette wrote: »

I've tried repeatedly to get into a group farming my faction zone. If it is an existing group deep into the zone, and I haven't been fortunate enough to get into the group upon early creation, there's no way I can reach that group.

I've tried porting to a group member, running, dying, rez-ing at a spawn point, running, dying, rinse repeat but I can't make it. How is this workable?

NM is about as enjoyable as hitting myself in the head with a hammer. And I rent the hammer.

For PC EU the Thousand Eyes have had 4X the Favor since night one. It's 35 million to 8.6 million. Unless they adjust how scores are counted, the is no way the other 2 can catch up.

Syldras · May 3

I don't think the blue set pieces help anyone, casual or not. I don't think there's any person who has been playing ESO for longer than a few days who has trouble getting Plague Doctor or Mother's Sorrow items. So that's a very strange reward choice which makes me wonder why.

I'm still not a fan of the fact that you can barely group "organically" because you rarely come across another player at all. Sure, group finder works. But it means: Stopping somewhere to write a notice - which is, to me, already an interruption of the game's "flow", if you want to play it as an immersive roleplaying game. Then you wait for the group to fill, which can take a bit off-time. Then you wait for the people to arrive, which can also take a whole while. I personally don't play ESO to fill out forms and wait, this is not Bureaucracy Simulator. I know I will need to do that, several times, until I get all relic fragments, and I will do it. But it's really not ideal.

spartaxoxo · May 3

I have mostly enjoyed the Night Market so far but I do have a couple of criticisms.

The trash packs respawn too quickly. I actually like the difficulty level they are but they respawn too quickly and drop nothing, making dealing with them feel unrewarding. If clearing some out actually gave you enough time to really look around for the various quest objectives, it would more worth doing.

The quest markers are too small and buggy. It makes finding a target, even when you're practically on top of it, more difficult than it should be. This should be how solo players can pickup a bit of favor and a little extra favor for groups but instead they aren't worth doing because of how long they take.

The instance cap is too small. This is group content. It shouldn't require so much workarounds to run into groups.

Alvsina · May 3

I had to register on the forum specifically to leave feedback, because for the first time in six years of playing, I'm so disappointed in the content that I need to talk about it.

From here on, I'll simply describe my experience with the Night Market as a player who doesn't follow the news much, but plays regularly and has a decent skill level.

Before I had a chance to explore the Night Market myself, my friends had already shared their experiences, and one of the main concerns was that the game openly shows which faction is winning. So, when I entered the area myself, I simply went and joined the faction with the highest score. It didn't look particularly appealing to me, but a win is a win, I guess? After that, I entered one of the battle areas itself and, of course, died immediately, which is not surprising. After respawning at a high point, I saw a group of four players fighting a boss nearby. Naturally, I immediately joined them, and we immediately died. And again. And again. And about five more times after that. Between respawns, I lokked at the rest of the location from a high spawn point and saw that there was no one else in the area except the five of us, and there was no one to call for help. I was surprised that killing a boss in open-world content requires a party of more than five players, became disappointed, and left the zone.

You can't give up so easily. Next, I tried to find a party to continue exploring. I opened a group finder, and there were several groups for different activities. I looked at what I needed to do (place some stones) and returned to the group finder again, but there were no groups for that activity (most of the activities were unfamiliar to me and seemed more advanced than the stage I was in).

Then, I thought, why do I even need a group to place some stones? I'm a fast runner. I returned to the area, found the spot where I needed to place the stone, and sure enough, the mobs were right next to it. And of course, the placement animation didn't have time to play before they started hitting me.

Okay, I thought, I just need a little time. I'll wait for someone to pass by, distract the mobs, and then I'll place the stone. I stood next to it and waited. And waited. And waited. Five minutes passed, then seven not a single living soul passed by. I basically didn't see any other players the entire time.

At that moment, I realized that in six years of playing, this would be the first content and the first pursuits I'd completely skip. My idea of group content in the open world is that you can grab a couple of friends and have fun exploring and fighting together. Instead of finding a group of 10+ people from your faction at the same gameplay stage as you to place some stones, that's just a crazy concept. Besides, I suppose after the stones there are still many stages of the quest and being under the pressure of constantly having to find large groups of people who need to do the same thing as you, and all this takes a huge amount of time, and forces you to play at an inconvenient time for you because it is prime time - it seems extremely exhausting.

I had such high hopes for this year. So yes, it's disappointing.

Thanks for the house, by the way, the bank feature is awesome. Too bad I can't activate it.

Lapin_Logic · May 3

WHO on Earth asked for "Veteran Trial" to be an overland difficulty?
Vet Trial is a trial for a reason, and usually folks don't go in there and randomly bump into maybe 2 other players (in your instance at a given time of day).

The content is far over-tuned in mob difficulty and one shot mechanics if the zone is "for everyone".

I'm not saying nuke the difficulty to Vulkel guard level, but it needs dialing back a little seeing as less people are in here than at a Dragon in Elsweyr

Randyfoxie · May 3

Locking new content behind mandatory groups shuts out players who work. That’s not good design. Good MMO design respects different playstyles. This feels like it forgot solo players exist.

Lapin_Logic · May 3

twisttop138 wrote: »

I have not had a chance to play yet, I'm at work.

Not entirely sure why you were giving an opinion on it if you hadn't played it.

We have had community events where the community work together, this zone has been implemented in such a way that you feel like you accidentally walked into a vet DLC trial and pulled a pack with a mini boss, and if you aren't on high alert (in the mountain of sparkles and glow vfx, where the entire floor is covered in red circles and cones, rendering that mechanic useless) then you get one shot with some random 29k hit or 2x 18k dot ticks, and I emphasise solo again because walk around one wing of the Night market... maybe you will find 2 people, and maybe they will run away to do their quests, maybe they will cloak and run through a crowd.

going out of your way to group marginally helps but good luck in 2 weeks time when everyone is bored with the zone.

Apollosipod · May 3

Randyfoxie wrote: »

Locking new content behind mandatory groups shuts out players who work. That’s not good design. Good MMO design respects different playstyles. This feels like it forgot solo players exist.

Buddy...this ain't it. I get the desire for solo stuff, but have you looked at the remaining 98% of the game? I play solo almost every time I play, but this is an MMO for God's sake. I work. I have kids. We all have things to do. Yelling at the clouds about NM "forgetting solo players" is the most chicken little thing I've ever heard. Use the Group Finder. If there isn't a post then start one. Respecting different play styles is acknowledging that not everything has to fit your play style as well.

anadandy · May 3

Randyfoxie wrote: »

Locking new content behind mandatory groups shuts out players who work. That’s not good design. Good MMO design respects different playstyles. This feels like it forgot solo players exist.

I'm confused by this, how does it shut out players who work? I work a full time job outside my home and I also go to bed pretty early so I don't typically play traditional "prime time" and am not shut out of anything.

robwolf666 · May 3

I've given up with NM to be honest.

I've come to the conclusion it's not designed for a player like me, which is fine, I'm not saying everything needs to be, but this is quite clearly group oriented. I'm not a group player, and so, not for me.

All I've been able to do is dailies, but even in order to do that I've had to use my NB to sneak around. All you get for dailies though is a handful of favour, which doesn't seem to have a purpose, unless I'm missing something. Plus gear you can get elsewhere in the game doing things much easier.

I've made absolutely zero progress where splinters, keys, relics etc are concerned - which let's face it, is the only way to make any real progress in NM.

Hopefully down the road this year something is coming that is aimed at someone like me.