A solo only player finally relents and joins a Night Market group. World changed forever!

Ravynmagi · May 6

I've been reading these forums the last few days as I try to find a way to enjoy the Night Market as a solo only player. And I see a lot of people here are also solo only and feeling a bit frustrated and left out with this release. Tonight I threw caution to the wind and decided to just go into the group finder and join a group.

Now mind you, I've played this game almost exclusively solo for years. So some of the crap I'm about to say may sound really stupid or obvious to the normal folk who group up or maybe Night Market is just a different experience. But I found that almost every excuse I had to not join a group in ESO was invalidated tonight during my experience in the Night Market.

My experience tonight: I picked a group that looked like it had a decent number of players. And I didn't realize these groups could be up to 12 people large, so that's nice. I was then transferred to the instance the group was in. People are already in the zone, so I have to sprint through hell to get to the group, but that was usually no problem. It was really refreshing with how casual everyone was. Just a group of people running around killing crap. Maybe someone will call out something they want to do and the group goes and does that. People were coming and going from the group at will, so I didn't feel like I was locked into a 2 hour commitment. I joined a group, would run with them for about 15 minutes to kill a few things, then leave and come back with another character and repeat. It was so easy, no stress, no worrying about knowing what I'm doing. I was really expecting something a lot more stressful.

Nobody guilting anyone for not doing enough DPS or having the right gear.
Nobody yelling because you don't know how to do an encounter.
Nobody expecting you to commit the next 4 hours of your time.
Nobody had any expectations whatsoever.

10 out of 10, would recommend to everyone soloing!

noneatza · May 6

Congratulations sir, you are now part of the ultra-toxic elitistic top 1% of the playerbase ! Enjoy your benefits of being part of the only category of players catered to by the devs
/sarcasm, i'm so sorry i had to

Make sure to do some of the puzzles here and there when possible, or the puzzle in top right of the parch, the infinite archive buffs you get are crazy good and last like 30mins or something.
And be aware NM can get very addictive very fast...

Taarente · May 6

Glad you joined in. I find getting around not too bad after a few days, but yes often once you join a group and find that you have to cross a district to get to them. That is the hardest part. Try the daily quests there, most are find x do y hand in at z. Not difficult but sometimes you find 20 daedra chasing you while you are trying to hand in a quest. The dungeons in this are 1 room and not so bad. the trial also is more doing the right thing at the right time than killing lots of enemies.

gamergirldk · May 6

Pug is pretty much come as you are and have fun.Dont hold back if you think you are to weak or new to make it work.

tsaescishoeshiner · May 6

Night Market overland is a great introduction to group content. It's most similar to joining a zerg in Cyrodiil, where one person can sort of blend in to the crowd, or joining daily world boss groups.

The Night Market dungeons, however, are more like a group dungeon—somewhere between normal and vet, easy for some but failable. The Parch and Skittering dungeons are particularly not one that every group can do. My advice is to take a tank and healer (even for the ones people say you don't need them), and if you're a more casual DPS, consider either parsing a little bit or working on solo content like Maelstrom, Vateshran, or Arc 3 of Infinite Archive (past Arc 4 you need to be tankier) to feel ready. But you may get lucky and get a good group.

Psyphiman · May 6

You have leveled up the forums!

icefyer_ESO · May 6

If you ever have trouble getting around for the soloable dailies or the like, I usually swap out one of my class lines for the nightblade shadow tree for the cloak and just run around invisible thanks to vampire's no stealth speed loss passive.

AScarlato · May 6

I have loved Night Market for the same reason as above.

For the mass-group roaming part of Night Market, there are little to no expectations at all which has been wonderful! Very easy to jump in and not feel like you are under the gun for scrutiny like I would if I tried a 4 person vet dungeon or something.

twisttop138 · May 6

That's so great to hear. I'm glad you had a great time and hope others do as you did. Now that you're an elite I wanna tell you a secret. While I'm sure some folks can be real toxic and mean, the past 2 years for me have been the opposite. I played for years solo, I came from other MMOs where I burnt out on dungeons and raiding. A couple years ago I came back from a break and gave it a try. It was not what I was expecting. I found patient, welcoming people that were happy to teach, guide and explain over and over again. I get some anxiety when the group depends on my actions, like portals, but never felt singled out.
So if you enjoyed the content, look for a guild that teaches group content. We are absolutely out there and enjoy teaching new people.

zaria · May 6

I and two friends went in no tank, I have some heals, one was level 12. We did well, we got some hanger once a lots of the time, only time we wiped was then I attacked the big boss with +20 million health.

spartaxoxo · May 6

I'm glad that you joined in on the fun! I think a lot of people have a bad impression of grouping in this game from venting posts about elite groups or particularly bad PUGs. But, those are just people venting their frustration at specific interactions and shouldn't be seen as a reflection of grouping in this game as a whole. There's a lot of group activities in this game that just as casual and I'm glad that the Night Market is giving people the opportunity to see that.

Rohamad_Ali · May 6

You mean it's safe to join normal groups as a solo player? This requires further evidence.

CatalinaWineMixer2 · May 8

There are a lot of others just like you and I am so very glad to see it! This is the way the game is supposed to be. All the time! For all of us!

heimdall14_9 · May 8

great post glad you didnt exclude yourself from a fun addition to the game , like others that call themselves solo's out of fear for GF as NM has gave life to the GF like no other content ever has theres 10-15 things going and they fill up faster then ive ever seen anything else too . great time to enjoy both systems imo .. and i am a soloist that also enjoys doing group content

Rkindaleft · May 8

I'm glad you had a good experience. I said a similar thing in another thread, but honestly anyone who's actually paying attention in game can see how much this event has taken over and how popular it is.

The only place I'm seeing regular negativity is on the forums, and it's mostly dominated by the same handful of posters spamming it constantly (everyone knows who they are). In game and even on Reddit reception is generally positive.

Guilds that aren't even focused on trials/dungeons/high level PvE are talking all about it. Even my casual trader guild runs groups more than once a night. Group Finder is massive atm - I logged in last night PS/NA and there were like 15+ listings for several hours and once you joined a group it would fill up in like 60 seconds max. It's also got a bunch of people who weren't sure on group content before to try out stuff like trials, and a lot of them enjoyed doing them. Getting more people into that kind of content is fantastic for the game overall.

demonology89 · May 8

I'm very happy to hear you had a good time! 😊 The chill PUGs are the best.

OccultNerd · May 8

Love this post! Hopefully more solo players will follow and realise that grouping doesn't mean having to talk or be in the top range for dps'ing.

I honestly feel that so many solo players are holding themselves back, slot a self heal and shield skill, join a pug on GF and go for it. I've been in absolutely loads of pug groups for NM since it came out and not once did I see anyone being toxic.

There definitely seems to be a percentage of players that look at others doing n/v trials, v dungeons (and now NM)etc.. and assume they are some elitist player in a trial guild with voice comms.....but a good majority of us solo players just join pugs and go for it! Yes other players can say hurtful things but that's what the ignore/block/report function is for.

I've had so much fun in NM, whether doing quests solo, using GF for groups and the trial (done it like multiple times now just to try and help others that haven't completed it)