NM shines light on reality of ESO community

Darth_Foole · May 25

The problem today is that people do not want to get involved and have no patience. I used to be in guilds and quite involved but, for quite some time now, that seems to be impossible. I still am on loose PvP and trading guilds which allows for the odd group and getting some help from time to time. But, when it comes to doing advanced content, especially trials, forget about it. Every trial guild I’ve been in lately lasts a few weeks, maybe 2-3 months and the breaks apart.
The Nightmarket groups are a perfect mirror for this behavior: a group will form to do 1 accomplishment (I.e. skirmish) and fall apart almost immediately after. For the “harder” content it may not even last that long. One wipe and the first players leave, die more often and the group dissolves faster than a snowball in the Alikir.
Most players don’t even notice that the problem with harder content often is that a few mechanics need to be played to keep players alive. But no, instead of mechanics, the solution often is a big enough group (1-3 full 12 member groups) that throw themselves at the boss, die, rinse and repeat…

It’s no wonder, that it’s near impossible to finish the trial! I’ve been trying for days now. Since I don’t have a guild, it’s becoming so disappointing that I’m not sure, I will keep trying…
People mostly don’t participate in conversation (forget about voice chat) that it’s impossible to tell if people are indeed aware of the mechanics… I often have the feeling people don’t. Just to agree who belongs to what color is often most difficult. It takes an hour to get a group together because people can’t even wait a few minutes, constantly someone is leaving because he/she had to wait 5 minutes. After a wipe 3-4 players vanish and you have to fill everything again…
Yesterday the group fell apart after 3 tries with the last try 5% from getting to the final 3 bosses (had the guys from the “middle” helped, we would have finished) but we couldn’t even talk about it, as the group was down to half and then completely gone, almost immediately…
With this behavior it’s no wonder when ZOS concentrates on single player content instead of group content…
I definitely rather spend time by myself in Crimson Desert than in Nightmarket groups at the moment!

GeneralGrundmann · May 25

I agree on your description of people's behaviour, although I would describe it more to be a problem in general with today's players and not so much an ESO/ a NM issue in particular.

Destai · May 25

I’m a player who’s impatient and has a low frustration threshold. I gave this content 2 play sessions before ruling it out entirely.

I would be open to it if it were permanent, rewarding content that scaled with players. Instead it felt grouping was a challenge, and the systems didn’t really explain themselves.

Basics like rewards and grouping aren’t something I am willing to be patient over anymore. I’m also not willing to deal with FOMO and timed activities anymore.

Meanwhile, I hop on diablo, get my fix of combat and grouping, and just experience the game. If there’s a barrier, it explains it. It’s a bit of a different game, but with such limited gaming time, I absolutely require polish and rewarding games.

Blood_again · May 25

NM GF group behavior is optimal for NM content.
Was the group created for a skirmish? The skirmish is done, players are leaving. Seems legit.

It works the same as for non-NM trials.
After the trial run finished, the group leader doesn't expect the whole group to go on another trial. Sometimes the leader suggests it, but it is a new GF record anyway.
NM works the same, just more fast-paced.

Some GF groups declare longer goals and keep alive longer.
Like 'Faceted mobs hunt' or 'All the bosses in Parch' for example. Just choose or create the group wisely.

As for projection on the whole ESO community, it is far from truth.
I participate in two static groups that do regular HM/trifecta runs for over 11 months now.
Two of the guilds I'm in do organized NM runs. An Opulent run in one of them is scheduled for today.
If you want your NM activity to be more organized and less chaotic, just join guilds. That way you'll see a bit more light about what the community reality is.

Nemesis7884 · May 25

On the plus side it means you can easily find a group, join, do something together and then move on....drop in, drop out, without having to join a guild. Very casual friendly what 90% of the players are....i enjoy that....

OsUfi · May 25

I'm going to say one of the reasons I love Night Market is that I can just dip in and out with no commitment.

I make a group daily for my guilds, invite a bunch of folk in, throw it in group finder, we do one quest for the faction leader (argent/skirmish/brazen/etc) and one for scaredy cat (kill 25/50/75), share any quests we have, then we all move on.

If I go in to a trial group, I need to pay attention, optimise, commit for more than 15 minutes, and my time is scarce in the evenings.

I get what you're saying OP, it must look bad to someone who is into more long form content, but it's absolutely spot on for me. I love it. Group, do the thing, leave, nailed it.

SkaiFaith · May 25

It's not NM or ESO problem but "societal/human" problem: I always think about the 90%/9%/1% rule... 1% of people are actually "creators"; 9% of people "engage"; 90% of people "lurks".

So, if you see a guild with 500 "active members" and you notice 5 are officers and around 45 chat while 450 never participate... That checks.

It's basically like this everywhere in anything. Or at least "this is the rule"; there may be exceptions.
So, yeah, totally understand the general focus on solo gameplay style.

Nemesis7884 · May 25

I see a lot of potential if they nail the dynamic events...this could be really cool and make the zones come alive

tomofhyrule · May 25

Darth_Foole wrote: »

It’s no wonder, that it’s near impossible to finish the trial! I’ve been trying for days now. Since I don’t have a guild, it’s becoming so disappointing that I’m not sure, I will keep trying…

And yet, guild runs of the Opulent Ordeal usually succeed since everyone there has a goal and they are willing to help others.

The answer to this is to join a guild. ZOS has been pushing "hey, join a guild!" since they added Guild Herald Amsaad in the Markarth update, and things like the Zeal of Zenithar event and recent Golden Pursuits have really been pushing guild activities.

And yet, we instead have people who complain "how dare ZOS force us to join guilds! I want to be permanently solo and not have other people infest my MMO!"

Guilds are there to help people have groups to do things with. We can join up to 5, so a lot of people have a guild for trading, a social guild, an endgame guild, a guild specifically for friends... different guilds for different things. Anyone who's trying to herd a bunch of randos for a specific thing is going to have a bad time.

Frayton · May 25

It's because ESO is a casual game with mostly casual players who like to play casually.

BardokRedSnow · May 25

Doing this with a whole guild of people I imagine would be frustrating, if that was the best and only way to go about it. I only keep a handful of friends I talk to daily and play with, so helping them while sometimes frustrating is manageable and rewarding in its own way.

Group finder though makes it perfect, or almost as perfect as it will get. When a group ticks you off or they keep quitting etc, drop and start or find a new one, rinse repeat. There's enough players around to do this consistently so you aren't forced to interact with the same problem people.

Its not an eso problem its just a people problem, you encounter all kinds. Competent ones, incompetent ones, some who are trying, some who arent and are selfish and will join to get the quests done without helping at all by just standing there. They get kicked immediately and replaced very easily so no big deal.

Gabriel_H · May 25

The biggest problem that I've found with every MMO community is they take a single example or persepctive and make it the gospel truth.

FurryCandyHearts · May 25

I despise the premise of night market. I see no reason why i should pledge anything to any of those three miscreants. And the opening quest being titled those who would rile tells me all i need to know about that wickedness.

onyxorb · May 25

Group Finder has worked exactly as expected for Night Market.
It has it's own section of Group Finder, and you list the purpose of the group when it's listed.
People get in, get their objectives done, and leave. It's been pretty amazing actually.
However, I think it's meant mostly for content where you can just throw bodies at it to complete.
Was able to get my relics and 10k favors just from joining or creating random groups with the group finder.

However, if you want to use it for the dungeons or the trials, you're probably going to have to be the one creating the group.
This will allow you to set the rules so your group only includes people that are there to seriously clear the content.
You could list those requirements in the listing:
do they need to show previous clear?
do they need to have voice comms?
do they need to have a set amount of time for the clear? (30 mins, 60 mins, etc)

Creating the listing itself, and verifying members who want to join might be more work, but it will probably get a group that is more likely to clear?

Hope you're able to get a group that gets you the clears. 👍

ESO_player123 · May 25

I also like that I can join a group in GF that is after the same goal as I am, do it, and hop to the next one. The goals are clearly indicated in the description for most groups I've seen (i.e. keys farming, dailies, skirmish, dungeon, blood in sands etc). Yes, pug trial groups tend to shed people, but I've also been part of those that persevered and got it done.

katanagirl1 · May 26

Group finder has been the only way for me to experience the NM this time, even when in two guilds that should have been running groups for this content. They weren’t. I have started group finder groups myself for bosses when I needed keys but when it comes to the group dungeons and trials, I am not a tank. It is best to wait for a tank to start one. The ones started by dps sit there and don’t get filled.

Yes, guild groups would have been way better but it is what is it. I am looking for new guilds now.

I thank ZOS for implementing the group finder in time for this event. Otherwise, I would have ended the event with two sets of keys left and not being able to run the group dungeons or trials. It was rough, but I got two runs of each.

EDIT: typo

Umbracat449 · May 26

I can't even find the night market. There's no portal in, I've looked everywhere in the shambles. I've followed the markers they go round and round in a circle. So I TP in, and it won't accept me talking to the curator.

Idk what's wrong but I'm not spending time trying to sort that basic level of game play out.

Alaya · May 26

I think it might be a good idea to encourage group play by simply offering more rewards for joining via the group finder or through your guilds. In this case, it'd be like, this group took care of the skirmish so you get an added incentive, like extra materials or whatever. Specifically, for content that should be completed with a group, of course.

While I haven't been playing with the Night Market all too much, when I DO join a group through the GF, I do my best in skirmish/bosses when i can, i don't just leave because everyone is dying, it just means to try again. If I have to take care of something IRL or whatnot, that's when I bid the group farewell, drop group and go. Personally, I find the GF pretty handy, and some groups fill up quick.

I think maybe next time NM comes back up, that maybe there just should be more rewards in general. Get rewarded for your time and troubles, and maybe it'll help with some things, maybe not.

CatalinaWineMixer2 · May 26

Ive said before they should do a couple of things to break up the gatekeepers. And not just that, expand player circles. They need to devise a system like FFXIV has with their Mentor System. And offer things like commendations for good player behavior. And have it so people who are your friends and Guildies cant give them to you, only random players from Group Finder.

Also, they should offer achievements and other rewards that can only be gotten by clearing things in a totally random group in the Group Finder. I have seen a lot of complaints lately that some of the new players are downright hostile and other things. I run in Group Finder a lot. And when we do trials sometimes, we only bring a few of us just to see what the population is like there. It seems like most of them simply ask about our cp, how long it takes to get there and which streaming personality they need to watch. They are completely missing the point of Eso. It isnt helping that this idea of 'dps is king' is being spread around the Realm. They're not going to learn mechanics by simply trying to cheat their way to end game. Or how to work with others in extremely hard content. I see more and more of them with their empty sticker books running around every day.

I am all for helping everyone as best we can. But when I see a 1000cp who has played for 2 months with empty sticker books running a build they dont understand and cant use properly, it makes me wonder if they should be helped. Its easy to spot them and theyre usually dead causing zero dps because they haven't learned anything truly useful.

Luneca · May 26

I could go there and tank, but I have no desire for a massive grind. So, I just go to Cyrodiil and fire siege.

What that means is that you are only seeing the players that happen to be on at the times you log in and desire to engage with the content. That's not a huge sample size or representative of the community.

It's ultimately the job of a developer to get people to engage with content and consume it, not the community. If people are quitting, it's because they don't find it fun. How can it be a community problem for a player to independently determine their time, which is their most important and valuable resource, is being wasted?

Gaming is a strange market where fault gets pushed everywhere besides where it belongs. In the entertainment space, which includes gaming, whose job is it to: entertain , keep engagement up, and otherwise trick people into thinking their time isn't wasted?

Again, it's not the job of other consumers. If it is, then that is when the media, whatever it is, has serious problems.

Aliniel · May 26

You have just described the problems of any MMO. With one ESO specific thing: people don't communicate.

I've done the trial only once and we did it on the first try. The leader was doing a good job and yelling commands all the time which I believe helped greatly. But I distinctively remember him asking something of a player who joined and the response was "ru".

We're all packed together into the same world and then non-English speakers, naturally, don't communicate because they simply can't. Other games have language-specific servers. ESO doesn't. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind playing with different nationalities. I have dual citizenship, speak 3 languages, work in worldwide company, and consume content from across the globe. But for an MMO game this creates problems. Try asking something a random person you meet in the world. The chances are very high you won't get any response at all.

These are the reasons I keep saying ESO has the worst community in any MMO. I would rather have toxic people than mute ones. What's the point of an MMO when 90% of players don't communicate?

moderatelyfatman · May 26

@Darth_Foole
I think for a lot of 'casual' players, ESO is mostly a single player game with a multiplayer component. My low energy approach used to be:

- Login -> Do Daily Crafting -> Do Daily Endeavors -> Daily Dungeon or maybe a BG.

Yes, the last one is a group activity but there is minimal interaction there: no need to group up beforehand or get into voice and actually talk to people.

I'm not saying this is bad, but it also means that single player open world games (such as ES6) are going to seriously compete with this player base.

moderatelyfatman · May 26

Aliniel wrote: »

You have just described the problems of any MMO. With one ESO specific thing: people don't communicate.

These are the reasons I keep saying ESO has the worst community in any MMO. I would rather have toxic people than mute ones. What's the point of an MMO when 90% of players don't communicate?

Fake tanks, fake healers in dungeons trying to do hardmodes without asking the rest of the group.
Fake tanks in PUG trials who won't communicate with the trial lead.

Who says you need to choose between toxic and mute when you can have both!

Blood_again · May 26

Aliniel wrote: »

I've done the trial only once and we did it on the first try. The leader was doing a good job and yelling commands all the time which I believe helped greatly. But I distinctively remember him asking something of a player who joined and the response was "ru".

We're all packed together into the same world and then non-English speakers, naturally, don't communicate because they simply can't. Other games have language-specific servers. ESO doesn't.

I know your pain. In fact, some players know fewer than one language.

Well, that is not the only cause of not communicating.
The game simply doesn't prepare a player for group play. One of the questions I often hear from players is "How to write to the orange chat?"
Also, the guilds where guild leaders post the instruction "/g1,/g2 ... is for writing to the guild chat" for every player joined, their guild chats are 5x-8x more active than the others.

AScarlato · May 26

I mean, all it takes is going into any dungeon to see how impatient a lot of this playerbase is, or any MMO that has repetitive grindy aspects.

Gingaroth · May 26

Umbracat449 wrote: »

I can't even find the night market. There's no portal in, I've looked everywhere in the shambles. I've followed the markers they go round and round in a circle. So I TP in, and it won't accept me talking to the curator.

Idk what's wrong but I'm not spending time trying to sort that basic level of game play out.

I had the same problem the first day. I ran past the entrance about twenty times or so before I found it. You easily miss the right tunnel if you don't look to the right direction at the right moment

For anyone still looking, it's here on the map:

Start from the Shambles wayshrine. Walk into the tunnel south-west of it untill you are here:

Then turn to your right and look up:

Follow that tunnel. You'll end up in this place. That's were the quest starter NPC should be if you haven't done the quest yet.

katanagirl1 · May 26

If you travel to the Starlit Plaza instead of using the passage above, is there a portal near the Night’s Den house? If so maybe you could use it to arrive at the Curator in his questgiver spot.

Athory · May 26

In my opinion, DPS share and logs were definitely the main reason for that feeling in group content nowadays. People have stopped playing the game because they want to enjoy their time in there and play the game itself but instead, they play because they need to chase for numbers and ranking.

People don't care about mechanics, cooperation and other things like progression and instead, they focus only on parses and fight logs as well as being "meta" players. If a fight wasn't perfect enough, people leave the group because they believe that it wastes their time and decreases their stats. At the same time, many others leave because they don’t want to be mocked, trolled, or become targets of toxicity over low DPS or poor performance. That kind of environment kills the social aspect of the game and discourages people from learning and improving together.

That behavior doesn't make any room left for teaching other people, learning from wipes, and letting slow people participate in runs because everything is done efficiently and effectively.

ESO used to be far more social than it is today; nowadays ESO has become nothing else but a .....(will not say it) game.

Eliahnus · May 26

I feel your pain, OP.
A week ago I participated in a pugged NM trial for 3 to 4 hours on end. At the time everyone understood the mechanics, there was always something going wrong in the last stage that provoked the wipe. Unfortunately, we had a low CP leader (about 800) and at least half of the time we wiped because of him; sometimes it seemed that he was just fooling around, he did not communicate in chat either. After those hours, people got demotivated and started leaving, new players poored in who did not know the mechanics... we had to start over with the explanations .. a hopeless situation. Finally, I also left.
I never tried again and I'm not going to in the near future. I've done everything else, have about 20k favor, the trial is the only GP task I have not completed. It's okay... almost.

Gabriel_H · May 27

Athory wrote: »

People don't care about mechanics, cooperation and other things like progression and instead, they focus only on parses and fight logs as well as being "meta" players.

Players that only focus on parses won't get progression.
Players that only focus on mechanics won't get progression.
Having higher dps can (but not always) make some fights easier, but there are still mechanics than need doing.

Competition between DDs can improve performance, or it could lead to toxicity. It's up to players to find others they want to run with, who are all on the same page, and who know the difference between improved performance and toxicity.

Athory wrote: »

That behavior doesn't make any room left for teaching other people, learning from wipes, and letting slow people participate in runs because everything is done efficiently and effectively.

There are a ton of starter guilds out there who cater to just that. There are a ton of high-end prog groups who also operate that way - or do you think 12 people just rock up to vSS and nail Godslayer like it was nothing? They still have to learn the mechs.

Umbracat449 · May 27

Gingaroth wrote: »

Umbracat449 wrote: »

I can't even find the night market. There's no portal in, I've looked everywhere in the shambles. I've followed the markers they go round and round in a circle. So I TP in, and it won't accept me talking to the curator.

Idk what's wrong but I'm not spending time trying to sort that basic level of game play out.

I had the same problem the first day. I ran past the entrance about twenty times or so before I found it. You easily miss the right tunnel if you don't look to the right direction at the right moment

For anyone still looking, it's here on the map:

Start from the Shambles wayshrine. Walk into the tunnel south-west of it untill you are here:

Then turn to your right and look up:

Follow that tunnel. You'll end up in this place. That's were the quest starter NPC should be if you haven't done the quest yet.

You have the soul of an angel. Thank you.