Mostly solo player here. No, not going to complain about the night market being too hard or forcing me to group up. I have been using group finder for the most part and am enjoying the harder content, even if I am burning through repair kits at a rate I have never experienced before.

I would say though that the quests scattered about the areas could do with some work. Someone mentioned having them easier to pick up instead of scattered about. I think that would be really good too. Use some of the NPCs on the safe places or place one just inside the entrance - NPC has lost his/her companions - now go find them, etc.

The quest markers though are truly awful. The flask one I wasted goodness knows how much time trying to find before eventually giving up on the area I was in and moving to another, finding it and only then realising that it was only in one of the places. The actually markers, once you are in the area are not visible until you are almost right on top of them, and since they are often near mobs, you can miss them entirely if you aren't close enough. This could do with some improvements so that you aren't wasting so much time on them.

Be helpful to have something on the map to show the race locations (where there are different ones) and oddities as well, instead of only having the markers when you have the quest.

Have been in a number of groups where, when the group forms, some players cannot get into the instance as it is saying it is full. This is kind of frustrating when you are trying to get a full group for a skirmish. Not sure what can be done about that, but it could do with something to prevent this happening.

The relics are interesting though I am struggling to keep the lamp up long enough to get through any of the areas and the grapple hook never seems to be able to take me where I want to get to. Though the latter has got me out of a few tight spots in fights at least. The fan works much better though.

Love the house and the number of furnishings. Unlocked the bank/safe in it yesterday and have been doing a bit of decorating today. The furnishings and the house are definitely the highlights of the loot from the area. Curated set items for sets I completed ages ago are not exactly motivating, though the occasional gold item is nice for the mats.

Also pleased at how quickly the leads for the mythic drop - completed it in just two days. Only took three days to complete all the relics - thanks to the UK Bank Holiday weekend.

Not done the dungeons or trial so can't comment on those.

So, that is my feedback, for what it is worth. Lots of fun, even for a solo player stepping out of their comfort zone, but some things could do with a bit of tweaking, the scattered quests in particular.

8th evening.

Didn't feel like starting a group through the finder today (didn't have much time either), so I thought about just "soft grouping" with randos - but strangely, after the zones had felt much more crowded the evening before, everything was dead empty again today. Looks like there wasn't a fix like I had hoped, but it's still a matter of luck if one ends up in an instance with other players or not.

At least the faceted enemies still spawn correctly now (although I'm not exactly sure how a lich or a boar can be faceted - didn't look like that either).

So, with barely any people on the map, I decided to just solo mobs for the mob splinter. I was still missing 2, got 1 of them relatively fast today - what a relief! I had feared it might take weeks with bad rng.

Also, I could finally unlock the bank today. Which means I'm halfway through.

Soarora wrote: »

people wanted to keep their Argent keys for other groups that require having the Argents done. This was incredibly complicated to deal with and very unfun. Keys need to be able to stack so that peoples gameplay isn't a competition between different groups that have different requirements, because not every group is going to do the gameplay loop in its totality due to the time it takes. I don't want to force people to have the gold keys for next week, I enjoy the concept of doing the full gameplay loop, but I'm probably going to have to just for simplicity's sake.

Edit: I also had a hard time getting people to fill because of people holding their keys. The relics is a hurdle and then the competition of group requirements is another hurdle, making it harder to find fills than it needs to be. The keys need to stack or the unlocks need to be permanent.

I double it.
The last two days I refused two invites for the opulent runs from my friends because of keys. I need them for the guild run tomorrow.
Last weekend I missed one guild run to the trial because of bad luck with a dungeon group. As a result, I avoid the same situation and skip the invitations.
I guess I will take it easier after having a no-death run. But currently it adds some tension.

All the night market group dungeons for me played no combat theme audio(Others in the group also confirmed so not isolated issue.) This made what were pretty fun engagements feel lackluster for someone that really enjoys being immersed with the boss theme adding to the intensity of a fight.

One thing that would be a nice QoL is the ability to farm and save a few keys.

Losing keys when you complete the "dungeon" and "trial" makes it hard to find players at the same level of progress. And it's a disincentive for taking a chance and helping less experienced players.

I find myself turning down runs because I need those keys for later and don't have time to farm them.

Doesn't need to be a high number. Would be nice to be able to hold 3 keys so I can farm Brazens-->Argents when I have extra time. And have flexibility to run when Gilded and Opulent when we get a group together. Seems a nice balance of flexibility that keeps things active.

Tandor wrote: »

MidnightDuel wrote: »

What happens AFTER the Night Market ends?

• Where will the entrance to the Night's Den house be located? Will players be able to exit the house in Fargrave when the Market is gone? Will there be an entrace somewhere in Fargrave?
  

The house icon is already on the map once you've received the house (and possibly have visited it, that may be required before the icon appears - I seem to have had a different experience with different accounts), so you will still be able to access it from the map or from your list of houses (which you can also access it through as soon as you receive it). Once the event has gone I believe that exiting the house will place you back where you were before you entered it.

Uhm... not quite. The den does appear on the map of Fargrave, but not on the list of houses. Which is more than strange.

OK 28 pages is a lot to read with limited time so these issues and suggestions may be repeats. Honestly this is going to take some reading, but whatever.

Getting to the Night Market
This really is not obvious. While there is a tab for 'Events' in the crown store, and the NM is described as an event, this tab just contains dyes. The actual quest is in Quest Starters in a sub tab 'events'. But here it is titled 'Those who Rule', with no mention of the Night Market until you hover over it.

This has lead to a lot of new player confusion. As has the fact it is in Fargrave, but you do not need the Fargrave DLC. There needs to be a herald in the base game as there are for DLC. Something like a Daedra NPC (surrounded by worried guards maybe?) who opens a portal to the NM plaza.

Unlike all(?) other homes, you cannot teleport directly to the Nights Den from the map and then leave to get to the plaza. If you click on the NM icon you then warp there at a cost in gold. Thus the home does not function like any of the others in the game, which allow direct teleports in. Again this has lead to confusion with players asking if they will still be able to get to the Nights Den once the market is closed.

Player count and instancing
The whole zone is one instance. This results in the the player base being split across the 3 precincts and the plaza, reducing the actual player count in each precinct.

The max count seems very low (36?) which can cause 'Instance full' errors when trying to join a group.

The zone needs to be split into 4 instances, Plaza and the 3 precincts with the precinct's instancing acting more like public dungeons, rather than trials.

The glittering dungeons/arenas and wayshrines(or lack of)
The fact that you have to walk to the entrance is a major pain point. The dungeons only allow 4 players, but you often need more than 4 in order to fight your way to them. As a result groups are often set to 12 in the finder, with an argument as to who can go in if and when you get there. Getting groups together is like herding cats as players will often just group up and then get distracted by boss fights, local quests etc.

Adding a wayshrine at the dungeon entrance or giving a lightly guarded path (one that can be cleared easily by 4 players) to the dungeon would solve this.

However they are locked behind the need to first collect the parts for the various relics and the fragments (shards?) don't deem to drop all the time which is reducing player involvement in the dungeons. There should be a different way to so this, maybe clear X precinct bosses and then have access to the arena as a 'final' boss? So more like a standard trial/dungeon but where you can pick which bosses to clear.
'
Difficulty and precinct quests
ESO has been solo friendly for a long time. So when a new zone is launched that requires group play, or a high skill level, there is going to be... 'disappointment'. The zone does not lead players in and instead has hard mobs at the entrance gating further exploration. This does not really encourage solo players to try with many comments on the Steam forums complaining it is too hard.

A solution would be to lower the mob difficulty at the entrance to something like that of a public dungeon, with the difficulty ramping up further into the precinct, up to the current level around bosses. Mustering points could be added in safe areas just before the difficulty increases. These would be similar to way shrines, but would only allow travel to a player/group and not general travel. Players who are struggling could then call out in chat and have others join them at the point. This would encourage group play while not reducing the precinct's overall difficulty that much.

The current instancing issues mean that you vary rarely come across a player who is struggling who you can try and help. The zones either have groups or corpses, which rapidly de-spawn to the safe oasis. Even if you do come across a downed player, actually healing them with all the mob pressure is almost impossible.

I have also seen suggestions that the NM should have difficulty levels in the same way as dungeons and this is another option, which would need less re-coding, but would not encourage group play.

Precinct quests, eg replace the statues head
Precinct quests seem at odds with the general group vibe of the NM as you cannot share them and so they appear to be solo quests, in what is very much a group zone. They result in players wandering off away for the group to complete, which can result in group fragmentation, and often results in those who try them being killed. This leads to complaints of the zone being too hard. The actual quest markers are not that useful, for example I have yet to find any of the propaganda you have to burn as the exact location is not shown until you are practically on top of it.

While these quests can be completed solo you need to be a Night Blade or pack invisibility potions to do so. Having the ability to share the quests would reduce the group splintering, but perhaps these need to be re-visited and made group quests that can be discovered, rather than solo ones?

Oddities and races
The oddities (puzzles) are, well just odd. They have a long cool down and so you are either left hanging around waiting for them or they are ignored. It would be better if there was a way to trigger them manually.

It does not help that the 'safe area' they are located in is not safe at all as mobs can be pulled into you.

The races seem very unbalanced. The Parch one is very easy, the one the the Sorrow - if involves the glowing orbs, it is not at all clear - impossible.

Factions, Scores, account locking and skirmishes
Having the faction scores displayed has resulted in most people just joining the winning side. While it is likely the the 1000 eyes would have had the larger player base due to the two piece reward, showing that they are miles ahead has just encouraged people to join that faction. Locking the player choice account wide has just increased this.

Instead it would have been better to hide the score and display when the 3 skirmishes are due. Having to look into the UI to see if one is even due is a pain point. Even when you do it just displays 'Inactive' rather than a time. I doubt anyone is just going to stare at a UI waiting for something interesting to happen. That's what drying paint is for. Better still give players a way to trigger the skirmishes manually.

While I can see the reason for the account locking, you want to encourage players to come back and try another faction the next time the market opens: the rewards and general issues with it do not really do this. Indeed I wonder how may will return the next time it opens.

Game wide issues that do not help group play
The Night Market really needs people who understand the role of Healer and Tank, particularly Tank. Yet the game just does not encourage either play style unless you run group content.

While solo players are going to have a few heals slotted for self preservation and so have a rough Idea of what a healer does, there are no quests that require or teach the role of Tank until you enter 4 player dungeons. Indeed many of these can be completed with 4 dps. This has resulted in people queuing as 'fake' tank and healer, just to do the content and then getting surprised when they find this does not work for the harder Trials, DLC and vet runs. This does not encourage group play with random players and has spit the player base between those who just solo and those who run group content.

If a set of quests were added that acted as tutorials for tanking and healing then I feel people would have a better idea of the roles. It could work something like:

Tank tutorials
You meet an NPC in the fighters guild who tells you that a town/village is being attacked by Daedra. They are standing by a portal and say that only one person can get in as it is unstable. They give you an armour set that is good for a tank and explain that you need to taunt the Daedra away from the survivors so they can escape. They also say that while the portal will shrink so no-one can follow you it will remain open just enough for them to offer advice.

On entering the portal you find groups of NPC being guarded and menaced by Daedra. The only way to free them is to taunt the Daedra away, with the fighter NPC telling you when to block etc.

On completion you get a reward and the tank armor you were given.

Similar quests could be added for debuffing and pulling adds.

Healer tutorial(s)
You meet an NPC in the mages guild, like the fighters one they are standing by an unstable portal to a Daedra attack, but here they need you to be able to heal the victims so they are well enough to escape. On entering the portal You find a battle with fighters holding back the Daedra and wounded all around. Healing the civilians allows them to escape. healing the fighters enables then to gain the upper hand and defeat the Deadra, completing the quest.

Similar quests could be added for buffing etc.

I think that people are forgetting that the difficulty of the Night-market is set to the new "Vestige" level.

I personally think that the open world part of Night-Market should be set to Veteran, one difficulty level below to allow for the casual player base to enjoy working as a group and then keeping the Dungeons and trials at Vestige difficulty.

Also adjust the favor earned to account for this lower skill level required for open world to make it fair on the people doing the vestige content.

Alright, I've given it some time to sit with me.

The Night Market is messy. There's a lot I enjoy about it, but it's got a lot of problems, and it draws attention to problems already inherently in the game, too.

Here's my player context, to inform where I'm coming from: I'm someone who has HM vet trial clears and does vet dungeons for fun. I have a small group of friends I enjoy running with. Trifectas aren't my thing. I tend to do IA more than most activities because it's designed for a small group and doesn't require setting up an appointment ahead of time and clearing my schedule -- I can go as far or as little as I'm in the mood for. I parse fine as needed, and I tank when no one else wants to tank. My gear is what it should be, and I read mechanics guides ahead of running content. My friends are generally worse performers than me; they listen to me and will follow a build guide, but they're not spending hours grinding trials and dungeons for sets if they don't have to. They've done it before, and they are tired of having to do it every patch as the meta shifts.

I can't think of a way to organise this post for easier readability. I'm sorry.

The first thing I like about the Night Market is that it is challenging group content that you can drop into and out of as your heart desires. I often go pretty long stretches in between vet trials and vet dungeons because having a scheduled commitment for 4-12 players is an additional hurdle to clear on top of actually doing the content. If I have chores I need to do in a day, I can take breaks during a night market play session to do them. (And as much fun as it can be to lose time in a game, sitting down for 2-3 hours straight to play a game is very unhealthy.) It has resulted in me playing more than I otherwise might have.

The first thing I hate about the Night Market is that the trash is incredibly hostile to groups, especially drop in and drop out groups. If a player is split from their group by the map, or just getting a little lost for about a minute, the trash will annihilate them. It is a physical barrier that prevents people from getting together or staying together. I see the most common strategy players deploy to get to a group that's across the map is the suicide run, relying on the invulnerability that comes from resurrecting to protect them long enough to regroup with the group. That's really frustrating, both to be that player and to be in the group, unable to help. With the trash taking as long as it does and rewarding literally nothing, it's a terrible idea to try to swing back to the entrance of a district to pick one or two players up.

I don't think the trash has to be *** easy, but a 20% reduction to hp and outgoing damage would be an improvement. The trash is easily the worst part of the Night Market, and where the worst parts of the game come into stark focus.

A side note: the favour orbs that spawn occasionally from trash need to last longer. They're so hard to see in a fight with all the special effects flying around. As a tank, I'm always suffering from a speed debuff because of the Bracing Anchor fitness node, so I often feel like I'm being punished by having rewards taken from me as a result of filling a necessary role. Also, pulling trash groups is often the safest and smartest strategy in the Night Market, but favour orbs only drop where enemies spawn, not where they die -- that can be very, very far away.

Another side note: trash should occasionally drop rewards beyond the favour orbs. It's such a hassle and a waste of time. Blood on the Sand is not sufficient.

A third side note: Trash should respawn much slower. On the scale of once per five minutes. Not, as I've noticed, once per minute. People don't have the time to summon and use their merchant and decon assistants after a fight before all the trash respawns. It's really, really frustrating.

The second thing I like about the Night Market is that doing the Night Market theoretically unlocks relics that make it easier to move through the Night Market. The idea of learning the content actually being reflected in a literal gameplay ability that helps me accomplish my goals is really attractive. The relics are physically very attractive, and I love how they come as collectible furnishings. I like that relic splinters come from doing a variety of activities, even if they come from particular ones, so there's not really any grinding. A tour of each district got me what I needed. (The windglass as a furnishing would be better and more usable if it wasn't floating or spinning. Please change it.)

The second thing I hate about the Night Market is that the relics actually don't help me move through the Night Market, on average. The Egg of Arac relic is the best of them. Zipping around like spiderman above trash mobs is a blast. Adding another dimension to a district, especially one that is free from enemies, allows me to take a break, appreciate the ambience, and adds the feeling that there's more to the world than meets the eye. Unfortunately, it appears the ziplines have been deliberately designed so that you can't traverse the entire district that way, forcing you to spend 10 minutes fighting each trash spawn in between relic grapple points, or risk life and limb sprinting past enemies that, inexplicably, all have snares and slows and stuns. (Please stop giving every overworld enemy movement debuffs. I can tell those debuffs are there just to inconvenience me, not to add a level of complexity and interest. The enemies are inconvenient enough without them.)

The other relics are significantly worse. Enemies can run through sand walls with impunity, and sand walls don't prevent enemies from aggroing, so using the windglass to navigate the Parch can actually get you killed when going the long way would have been safer and less frustrating. (The Parch is a particular frustration on several levels; the map, because it is designed to show roads as they appear, misleads players. They try to follow the map, trusting in it like idiot fools, and end up getting stuck and dying because there's sand walls where the map tells them they should walk. Some actual paths that aren't blocked aren't on the map.)

Side note: The Night Market is the game's most egregious example of maps that just lie to you. The whole game has this problem where maps don't actually show you impassable terrain, cliffs, canyons, elevation changes in general, invisible walls, all the paths and roads that are properly passable. Some maps, if accurately representing the game world, would look a lot more like a terrible noodling cave system. Night Market has entire areas that just kill you if you try to pass through them, and the only way to tell is if you somehow have your health bar showing up on your map as you're using that map to run through them, as your health drops to zero in about eight seconds. Because the map is a full screen UI. If you're also being attacked by the plentiful trash enemies, you probably won't even know it was a zone hazard that killed you. ESO's maps have always been the worst I've seen in an MMO, but Night Market's maps are the first I've seen that are designed to kill you. That sucks. Night Market maps need to reflect the Night Market's unique challenges -- the sand walls and the baleful darkness at *least* should be on the maps, so I don't have to watch my new group mate spend 5 minutes dying to environmental hazards trying to get to my bloody group. At best, even the grapple points would be on the map -- I should be able to tell where I *could* go, even if I can't. Don't tell me that the maps have to be immersive and realistic. If they were, then the Parch would show more paths than there are on the map. The unblocked path from the entrance of the Parch, to the Ash Titan, that requires skirting around the Skirmish and going North, looks like there's an entire cliff there that should block players.

Side note: I get that the Night Market was supposed to have a feeling of evolving discovery, but the thing about evolving discovery is that it comes after a period of confusion and a series of trial and error decisions that take time. Players in large groups don't have the time to be confused. (Two to four people is somewhat better.) The time they need to take to figure something out for themselves is time they're stealing, essentially, from the large group that has to wait for them. It feels bad to be in that position. It's why a lot of casuals are afraid of trying trials and dungeons in general -- they don't want to punish other people with the time it takes for them to learn. Navigation should not be a puzzle for group content. Travel time is not content. It's not gameplay. It's the tax you pay to get to do the content and gameplay. Traveling in ESO is the worst part of ESO. Everything is made better when you don't have to do it. Make maps that help players get to where they need to go, whether that's the Night Market or Auridon. Don't make maps full of lies.

More on relics that don't actually help me move through the Night Market: If I use these relics, I am ditching my group. Again, a major problem in the Night Market as a fun group experience is that group separation is death. We're now a week into the Night Market, and most of the people in my groups are still working to complete their relics, effectively preventing me from enjoying the benefits of earning them, unless I want to be a *** and leave them to their deaths.

The Egg of Arac is at least fun, and it's okay if you have the real gameworld memorised with its grapple points (not a small ask when we can't stop to look at anything for fear of trash respawning on us,) the Windslicer has serious drawbacks, but the Gleaming Lamp is actually a punishment, not a reward. If you aren't sprinting like a mad man, and you don't have the Incandescent Pod sources memorised already, the Gleaming Lamp will just get you killed. There are enemies in those areas, and their leashes go a lot further than normal trash. They also have slows, snares, and stuns, which will run out the time on your lamp. At least theoretically the windslicer might save you time if you were somehow immune to trash aggro (going invisible, for example) -- the lamp doesn't. I'm also not clear what secrets there are to discover using the lamp relic. None of the treasure chests or heavy sacks I found in the baleful darkness counted towards the Golden Pursuit objective for using relics to find secrets. I hate the Gleaming Lamp. I hate Baleful Darkness. I just pretend those parts of the map aren't real.

A third thing I like about the Night Market is that the environments are all visually stunning and incredibly interesting. I wish I could take a breath to admire them. There's really nothing in the game that looks like the three districts; they're completely distinct even from Fargrave, in spite of using Fargrave assets. I really feel the concept in the design execution. This is ESO's Sigil, city of doors, and I feel as if I am on the very edge of knowable reality, risking life and limb to discover what's really out there. It's an exciting idea, well represented in the game world.

A third thing I hate about the Night Market is that space is used so very badly. The Oases are intended to be islands of safety in a hostile world, but they're very bad at serving this purpose. Because there's just the one jump pad to each, they're practically inaccessible. If you can get to that one jump pad, you could have gotten to any part of the map; clearly trash isn't an obstacle for you. There needed to be more jump pads, or other ways of getting into the Oases. Further, the Oases aren't good staging areas, partially because they're broadly inaccessible (unless you kill yourself; I am never going to recommend other players kill themselves, I hope you can understand why,) and partially because they're in bad locations. Few of them are near bosses or skirmishes without trash in the way. Most of them are surrounded by moats of trash. I need staging areas that are immediately next to the piece of content I am going to run. My groups need that. I can't tell you how many times I've walked up to a skirmish, sat down to explain the mechanics to my group while the skirmish timer ticks down, only to die because someone inadvertently dragged dozens of trash enemies to me while I was typing. And I can't blame them, because there's no way to avoid the trash, and 99% of players can't solo it. That's why they joined my groups. The Parch Skirmish ends up being one of the best designed areas, because there's actually an area empty of enemies around it, and it's large enough that enemies have a chance to de-aggro before players reach whatever group is forming. The districts overall feel claustrophobic, and not in the sense that they feel dangerous, and that it feels like I'm risking everything by traversing them. But in the sense that I have to accept my time will be wasted by things that do not and cannot benefit me, as if my time is worthless.

Side note: I wish desperately the relics did give you safe spaces to take a second to breathe. I think if the districts were crowded natively, but you unlocked safer areas to spend a downtime in, that could feel very rewarding and multidimensional. That would be something for people to look forward to earning. Since the Egg of Arac fails to actually give you full nagivation of the Skittering District, this is what I mainly use it for, and it's not nothing. Even if I would rather have the ability to get to where I need to go, when I need to get there.

A third thing I like about the Night Market is that skirmishes have mechanics that reward non-combat actions. I like that the Brood Skirmish has a GW2 style world event in it, where players need to use interactables to progress the objective; high performing players are still free to do combat, and low performing players can contribute meaningfully by throwing coals or depositing debris. The same is true of motes of magic in the Ritual Skirmish. I find players in my groups even self select into these roles, if you take a second to explain what to do. (The pop ups telling you what to do don't always show up. I don't know why.)

A third thing I hate about the Night Market is the timers on Skirmishes. The displays for Skirmish timers are often bugged, telling people they're active when they're not, or counting down to becoming active, and then not doing so. The rotation on Skirmishes is very long. If you need to do a particular Skirmish, you might be looking at several hours of waiting because it's hard to predict when one is going to be active. It seems to me that only one can be active at a time, but that's not stated anywhere in game. That sucks. I suspect the count downs serve to allow groups to form for them, because they can be pretty challenging, but it mainly just serves to make it a piece of content that is largely unavailable at times that work for you. I feel bad for people who only have a couple hours to play a night, because that's just gambling. I don't like a piece of content that requires you to gamble just to do it.

Side note: 36 players is too small for an instance. You don't find anyone organically running around at this point and do things together spontaneously, like you would in a GW2 style group event. The group finder is mandatory, and that's not explained in any Night Market materials. It needs to be. It's not a piece of the in game UI you stumble into organically.

A fourth thing I like about the Night Market is that the quests interior to the district are very full of texture without demanding too much from me. I like the radiant quests in Skyrim -- they help me feel what it's like to be in the setting, in the space, and they give me a perspective on run of the mill, status quo problems. When I sabotage the weapons in Blunt Steel, I feel like a sneaky saboteur behind enemy lines, risking life and limb to hinder my foes. When I go save the animals in Free the Caged, I get the feeling that the Night Market is full of opportunists willing to hurt others for personal gain. I like that I can stop them. I think it's a virtue these quests aren't full of text and loaded with character interactions -- the fact that I get them from discovering an item, or a note, makes it feel as though my character is taking initiative and responding to the world on their own terms.

A fourth thing I hate about the Night Market is that it's group content that has a bunch of solo conventions in it. The quests interior to districts are solo quests. The trial group that makes Night Market a decent experience isn't doing those quests -- they're killing bosses or doing Skirmishes. If you step away from your trial group for a moment to do one of these objectives, or at least search for where it is, you've been separated from your group, and you will likely have to die to get back to them. As a tank, I never feel like I can do that. My group is waiting on me to aggro the next trash or boss. And other people doing the objectives doesn't count for me, even though this is supposed to be group content. Almost all other content shares progress across a group. Solo quests have no business being in the Night Market as it's currently implemented. Also -- the Night Market is a trial zone, but treasure chests and heavy sacks are still unique to the individual. That feels wretched. There should be a timer on them, at the very least. I never go for them because I feel like I'm stealing from my team and wasting their time when I do. And when I'm one person in a 12 man group, that's 11 people who are waiting for me.

Side note: What is wrong with quest sharing? I know by default you can't share the quests individual to the districts, but the logic that governs when you can share daily quests from your faction leaders is opaque and nightmarish. I never know when I can share a quest or why. The Night Market is clearly designed around the conceit that you're sharing quests -- you can't get that 10k faction favour by just doing your own dailies and nothing else -- but that's not spelled out in the Night Market, and sharing quests randomly doesn't work sometimes. I run, again, with a small group of friends, and we almost never can share our daily quests with one another. I'd like to know why.

A fifth thing I like about the Night Market is oddities. I've asked for non-combat activities before, things you can do in the game world beyond killing a bad guy, and the oddities are that. I think the Arachnid Invasion would be a great little addition to a festival or event as a little minigame, part of the celebration. A party game. Just silly for fun, like LOTRO has for its seasonal celebrations. It makes the world feel like a world, not a massacre simulator. I like that oddities give you little buffs. (I am very happy to see IA buffs make their way to other parts of the game. They're fun and interesting.)

A fifth thing I don't like about the Night Market is the races. Theoretically, they should be as silly and just plain fun as oddities, but because they're in spaces with incredibly hostile trash mobs that take ages to kill, they're pointless. God forbid someone else is in your district, trying to outrun the trash. They will drag their trash onto you. I don't do them. (An exception is the Parch races, that are completely sequestered from combat. I particularly like these because you can organically discover them as little secrets hidden in the gameworld, if you're paying attention to the signs.)

The calamities are fine. Neither love them nor hate them. I do think it's funny when the duneripper eats someone in the middle of doing something else, even though I know it is so frustrating for them.

The brazen and argent bosses are fine. You chose some pretty mechanics-heavy bosses for an open world zone, but... It's nothing that can't be explained in a sentence or two. I think that's okay.

I quite like a dungeon that's just a boss. I don't like trash normally. I think the ensnaring spider in the Gossamer Crypt is too tight a DPS check -- the ensnaring spider always killed at least one of my group members every time it spawned in my run of it. I also think there's too many mechanics to juggle around in the Timeless Wallow. I'd like to see the scarabs removed, if I could choose one mechanic to trim. If I could choose a second one, I'd remove the skeleton adds that aren't the bone wyrms. Otherwise, I kind of liked these dungeons. If they were tweaked in these ways, I might do them more regularly.

The group finder is very bad. I should be able to join other groups with a preexisting group -- trying to get myself and my friends into the same group that's forming is annoying and frustrating. We often have to quit a group because it fills up before we all can get into it. Making your own group and listing it is also annoying. The group finder should save your previous group finder information so you can repost a group with one click. Having to input the same information over and over again because one person drops out is a hassle -- Most group leaders I know only bother when the group drops from 12 people down to 8. You should also be able to toggle a listing, so that it will repost itself as people drop, not needing to open a full screen interface while we're in the middle of a big calamity fight.

I will report back after I do the trial.

A parting note... The slapdash nature of running content in the larger Night Market is that you struggle with necessary roles, either in fulfilling them, or having too many. The Night Market is hard enough you *need* a tank, but you only ever need two tanks. Anything more than two tanks is an active detriment to the play experience -- you'll be going slower because you have less DPS. You'll have people fighting over aggro, spinning around bosses that have cleave mechanics. (This happened to me last night trying to run the Descender Skirmish.) And groups that don't have tanks generally die. Just setting aside for the moment that ESO has the most miserable tanking experience I've ever endured in an MMO, the problem of tanks in the Night Market is not an easily solved one. Tanking in ESO comes at the expense of so much DPS, especially in the Night Market where tanks do need to be very optimised for survival. At least excess healers can still do respectable damage if their healing is redundant. I had a bizarrely good group that was five healers. Still did great damage, and no one died.

tl;dr there is something good and special about the Night Market, but it's mired in a lot of very frustrating nonsense. Most of that nonsense is trash mobs.

...

I finally did the trial encounter and wanted to leave some quick feedback on that. I left a more detailed reply just above on keys and the pain points around them so I won't go into it.

Most of us were blind on this run. A few of our usual group had done it but were trying to just give gentle hints until we had seen all the mechs.

I think this was an extremely fun encounter. It's different. I made the comment that I think this is a preview of how Zos plans to deal with power creep in trials. Mechanics that have to be executed instead of burned through as opposed to just giving bosses immunity phases and more hp. I don't know how they could give this trial a hard mode or a tri but it's still very fun.

Once we got the hang of it, it was just a matter of putting it together. I was left with some questions though. I did not catch how the orb order is telegraphed. I was on the purple portal team, and would just hear over comms that purples going right or red through orange or whatever. I have no idea how they knew this, I didn't see anything and don't think codes addon told me. By the way, big shout out to Code for having the addon ready for night market, even for console.

Overall I loved the encounter. I think it shines in encouraging teamwork and is fun. I look forward to what @ZOS_Finn is cooking for this years trial. Way to think outside the box.

One small complaint though. In the beginning, I went with the green team, the zip line team. We died some or ran out of time because grapple points were just not showing up. No matter how you moved the cursor, it would just not allow us to click and in a timed mechanic, this cannot happen.

Did my first NM dungeon last night via group finder on my healer, and my number one frustration was not the dungeon itself but getting there.

- Can't port to group member already in Dungeon. Have to run across the entire map to get there which means dodging, sneaking, spam healing through many many annoying mobs.
- The gimmicky relic mechanics just make it more of a slog, stop at glowy pod to charge lantern, while being attacked by said mobs. Hope glowy lantern lasts the entire way since time is eaten up dealing with trash.
- Die a couple times, including once as I am literally walking through the Dungeon door because my lamp chose that second to die.

It's the first time in my NM experience that I thought "Wow, this is just a silly mechanic for no reason except to frustrate players." My Templar is already slow af, she doesn't need more hinderances.

At the very least, we should be able to port to the dungeon and bypass. Maybe we can and I'm just stupid and couldn't figure it out. In any case, I was so annoyed and frustrated by the time I actually got to the dungeon I just wanted it to be done and log out and didn't enjoy it as much. Thankfully, the dungeon itself wasn't bad. That's crazy.

[EDIT: Just read the post above talking about the relics and traversing issues and completely agree. Mixed groups where some have the relic and some don't end up in frustration for everyone and makes "soft grouping" and pugs less attractive, which we don't need now that group finder is finally being utilized.]

twisttop138 wrote: »

MidnightDuel wrote: »

twisttop138 wrote: »

MidnightDuel wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

MidnightDuel wrote: »

We really need someone from ZOS to tell us what happens to the house when the Night Market event is over.

Do you really think that ZOS would be so foolish to give people a house and then yoink it and its contents away from people after the event? Can you imagine the pitchforks? I'm surprised people would seriously consider this to be a possibility.

In any case, yes, the house remained accessible after the NM closed during the U49 PTS.

It's not a question of whether the house remains, it's where on the map players will go when exiting the Night's Den house and whether there is a map location to enter the house when the Night Market isn't active.

ESO_player123 wrote: »

@MidnightDuel May be I misunderstood you, and we are talking about different things. Now on live I can travel to Night Den from any wayshrine. All I need to do is click on a wayshrine, select Fargrave, click on Shambles, zoom in a bit and then click on the icon of the house.

The house location is fine on the "live" servers. What is troublesome is that on PTS there is no house location on the map. And because of the timing of the PTS character copy relative to the Night Market, there is also no way to test entrance/exit features of the house on PTS.

Wouldn't you just select it on your menu and then when you leave, be ported back to where you were before? I mean I have a feeling the entrance would be in fargrave but who knows, but from your menu is easy peasy.

One can use a jump script to enter the Night's Den house on the PTS, but it's in a state where the house is "Not currently Available for Purchase." While entering a house on the PTS, it normally puts an icon on the player's map; this isn't happening on the PTS. Like all previews, it returns the player to their original entry point prior to porting to the house when exiting. One could assume this is what will happen on the live servers when the Night Market ends, but we don't know for sure what the experience will be when the player has already unlocked and owns the home.

Idk if you noticed but last night I saw something. When I went to the fargrave map, the icon for the nights den house is in fargrave, so I was able to port to it from the fargrave section of the map without ever heading into the market. The icon is close to the night market icon but it is separate. Maybe I am misunderstanding the issue. Is the issue the fear that you will not be able to walk into the house when the market leaves?

The issue is that the Night's Den house's entrance is located inside the Night Market Event Zone, and we don't know how that affects entering and leaving the house when the event isn't live. While the Night Market is active, the icon is on the Fargrave map, and there is no problem entering the house from the Night Market, porting to the outside of the house to access the event zone, or exiting the house to access the Night Market area.

The cause for concern is that the current U50 PTS does not inclue an active Night Market, and neither the house nor the market show on the Fargrave map. One of the benefits of owning homes in ESO is that they make for good port locations. If the only map location for the Night's Den is a temporary event location, that diminishes the usefulness of the house and has implications on how players will potentially use the house during the weeks/months between market events.

MidnightDuel wrote: »

twisttop138 wrote: »

MidnightDuel wrote: »

twisttop138 wrote: »

MidnightDuel wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

MidnightDuel wrote: »

We really need someone from ZOS to tell us what happens to the house when the Night Market event is over.

Do you really think that ZOS would be so foolish to give people a house and then yoink it and its contents away from people after the event? Can you imagine the pitchforks? I'm surprised people would seriously consider this to be a possibility.

In any case, yes, the house remained accessible after the NM closed during the U49 PTS.

It's not a question of whether the house remains, it's where on the map players will go when exiting the Night's Den house and whether there is a map location to enter the house when the Night Market isn't active.

ESO_player123 wrote: »

@MidnightDuel May be I misunderstood you, and we are talking about different things. Now on live I can travel to Night Den from any wayshrine. All I need to do is click on a wayshrine, select Fargrave, click on Shambles, zoom in a bit and then click on the icon of the house.

The house location is fine on the "live" servers. What is troublesome is that on PTS there is no house location on the map. And because of the timing of the PTS character copy relative to the Night Market, there is also no way to test entrance/exit features of the house on PTS.

Wouldn't you just select it on your menu and then when you leave, be ported back to where you were before? I mean I have a feeling the entrance would be in fargrave but who knows, but from your menu is easy peasy.

One can use a jump script to enter the Night's Den house on the PTS, but it's in a state where the house is "Not currently Available for Purchase." While entering a house on the PTS, it normally puts an icon on the player's map; this isn't happening on the PTS. Like all previews, it returns the player to their original entry point prior to porting to the house when exiting. One could assume this is what will happen on the live servers when the Night Market ends, but we don't know for sure what the experience will be when the player has already unlocked and owns the home.

Idk if you noticed but last night I saw something. When I went to the fargrave map, the icon for the nights den house is in fargrave, so I was able to port to it from the fargrave section of the map without ever heading into the market. The icon is close to the night market icon but it is separate. Maybe I am misunderstanding the issue. Is the issue the fear that you will not be able to walk into the house when the market leaves?

The issue is that the Night's Den house's entrance is located inside the Night Market Event Zone, and we don't know how that affects entering and leaving the house when the event isn't live. While the Night Market is active, the icon is on the Fargrave map, and there is no problem entering the house from the Night Market, porting to the outside of the house to access the event zone, or exiting the house to access the Night Market area.

The cause for concern is that the current U50 PTS does not inclue an active Night Market, and neither the house nor the market show on the Fargrave map. One of the benefits of owning homes in ESO is that they make for good port locations. If the only map location for the Night's Den is a temporary event location, that diminishes the usefulness of the house and has implications on how players will potentially use the house during the weeks/months between market events.

Oh ok. Thank you for the clarification. I thought the concern was not being able to get there without having to select it from your collection menu. I hope they will make it known that this will be possible.

Having played this a few more nights can update feedback.

It’s dull. Once you have gone round the zones numerous times killing god knows how many bosses & trash mobs to get the splinters for the relics (especially the trash mob one that can take some players an AGE to drop), it’s not that exciting.

Favour. Why have this as a random globe you have to interact with after a fight (sometimes) and often behind the group? And such a measly amount? And why limited time?

Keys. Just let them stack. Please. This is just grinding for grinding’s sake and not an interesting gameplay.

Grouping. Yes, this is somewhat fun in a big group, and allegedly what the area was designed for - so why make it that some quests can’t be shared? The ones inside the zone only encourage people to run off in different directions & lose their group and die.

Rewards. What rewards?

Relic fragments/splinters and keys. This is just too complicated. My guild has been running NM groups to get everyone their relics but my god, it takes some patient explaining to help people work out what bit they need from where. It should be easy.

The house. Its ok, glad for all the furnishings & bundles (wish they weren’t bound though). The side rooms are a tad disappointing, especially the one full of rubble.

Overall? Having run it for a bit, can’t see me coming back in here unless to help guildees. It’s just not interesting enough to do the grind necessary to get to the potentially more exciting stuff.