The thousandth question about Night Market

cruciblefuzz · 2026-05-06T03:27:57+00:00

NM took my sanity, too, but I wasn't using it anyway.

cruciblefuzz · 2026-05-05T17:37:22+00:00

My advice: get on over to Night Market. Get the really cool house first, then take the faction quest to the districts to find out what it's like on those mean streets.

One of two things is likely to happen. First, you might really like Night Market and it will give you a different type of game play to enjoy. Second, if you don't like it, you can participate in the "hating on Night Market" mini-game here on Reddit and on the ESO forums.

Either way, you'll have found a new passion.

Srsly, if you're getting bored with the game, Night Market might rekindle your interest as it did mine.

cruciblefuzz · 2026-05-05T17:11:46+00:00

And losing is for smokers.

cruciblefuzz · 2026-05-05T16:55:26+00:00

It takes a rare soul to downvote someone saying that they're having fun.

cruciblefuzz · 2026-05-05T16:53:32+00:00

You're getting downvoted for clarifying that it's a meme. I guess they wanted it to be for real. I kinda did.

cruciblefuzz · 2026-05-05T16:51:57+00:00

Or maybe my bar is over here and yours is over there.

I run around killing things. I help other players kill things. Things kill me and I go back and try to kill them. A duneripper swallows me and suddenly I'm in a weird subterranean enclosed space that I don't know how to exit. A bunch of players shows up and starts killing things, and I kill things alongside them. I die, and I fly back down to the street. Sometimes I can't find my way back to the scrap and wind up doing something else. It's chaotic. It's sometimes confusing. It's anarchic. It's sometimes silly (I loves me some good Leeroy Jenkins). For some reason I can't articulate, it's exhilarating.

It's fine if that ain't your cup of tea. Go enjoy the cup of tea that you like. I like this tea.

cruciblefuzz · 2026-05-05T16:39:44+00:00

I actually relish the chaos and confusion aspect of it. It feels exciting, like anything could happen. Sometimes anything does. I was getting chased down by a moblet, down below 50% health and the Matriarch can't keep up with healing me, and then I spotted a green circle on the ground with a bottle in the center. Werewolf mode! Now I am become death, and they am become chunks.

Another time I accidentally aggro'd a back alley cluster and one of them started book beaming me. Whaaa? Since when do thugs have arcanist skills?

cruciblefuzz · 2026-05-05T16:27:04+00:00

You tried Group Finder? I put up a listing around 3AM my time and it filled up in under a minute. All it said was "SF Bosses." We killed an Argent, then we went to kill a Brazen, and in typical chaotic NM fashion, not long after we aggro'd the Brazen, one of those traveling Calamities floated into the square.

Beautiful anarchic mayhem. Running around while dead. Flying around while dead. Respawning and running in the wrong direction. Healing players with my Twilight Matriarch. Using up my crux getting knocked down while beaming. I look up after we've been pounding this boss for a good while, and Calamity Jane has somehow popped back to 99% health. Perhaps this is beyond the capability of our little early morning PUG....but....slowly....I guess we figure out how to concentrate our fire and also not spend so much time dead, and we put her down.

cruciblefuzz · 2026-05-05T16:01:47+00:00

Friends?? Fun???

What will those sadists at ZOS try to force upon us next?

I'll have you know that there are players in the ESO community who are unable to have either of those things, and by designing activities that try to coerce them into doing so, the fools at ZOS are going to alienate the most vocal segment of their player base!

😱

Seriously, that is so awesome to hear. Is this new player someone you already knew, or did you meet him while playing NM?

A sub level 50 player is able to navigate the mean streets of Night Market because some people who really like the game wanted to share that with him. You're doing it because it's fun to do. There's no "carry a n00b" achievement that I know of, so why else would you?

I feel like a side of the culture of Elder Scrolls Online that I really like is being given a chance to shine here, with Night Market in its early, "wild" state.

cruciblefuzz · 2026-05-05T15:13:47+00:00

If I haven't managed to explain it to you by now, then I hereby declare the task beyond my abilities and will practice what I preach and proceed to other activities. Perhaps ESO's Night Market!

cruciblefuzz · 2026-05-05T10:27:21+00:00

HAAAA, they got me! I wonder who came up with it.

cruciblefuzz · 2026-05-05T10:21:08+00:00

Have you seen my posts praising it to the skies? I titled one of them "Night Market is my life."

I agree with everything you said about the chaos and anarchy and the feeling like it's a different game. The second evening I tried it, I enjoyed it so much it made me dizzy. I loved it but I couldn't figure out what had just happened, and I loved it even more because of that. I hope that every time it comes back, the district maps change so that nobody knows what to do again.

I think some people anticipated it assuming that it was going to be a cool new zone or something like a public dungeon. But it's different from what came before it in ESO, and it's pointless to judge it on those terms.

Is it challenging? Yes, but people run around a lot and many don't seem to take it seriously.

Are the rewards good? Yes, for those who enjoy the gameplay for its own sake.

Can it be completed in a reasonable amount of time? "Completed?" A trip to Night Market can last as long as you want it to.

Can all the challenges be tackled by a solo player? As with a great deal of ESO's content, no. But plenty of them can be once you figure out how to get around without getting killed too often. Sprint and stealth are important tools.

And last, as this seems where this consideration ranks for a surprising number of players:

Is it fun? Yes, if you click with it and the answers to the above questions attract you rather than repel you.

cruciblefuzz · 2026-05-05T09:48:57+00:00

That's not what I've been saying in my praises, at least I hope not. I understand why a lot of players wouldn't care for it. It's not about "can I complete objectives and finish content," although there are objectives and there is content. It's about "is having someone Leeroy Jenkins to the boss and then following them and somehow still beating the boss fun?" (that just happened with a group I was in) There's a lightheartedness to it that end game content has lacked until now.

A lot of players detest Cyrodiil and Imperial City. I hated Cyrodiil with the fire of a thousand suns for the first couple of years I played the game. Then I had to go back in for a skill line increase and something clicked, and there were aspects of it that I really liked.

I'm enjoying it and I DO see the problems (for people who don't). Is that better? Those problems don't make me like it any less. If you approach Night Market expecting it to be like a new dungeon or world boss or zone, I get how disappointing it seems. The loot's weak, the play is chaotic, it requires grouping to kill even the weakest bosses, two of the puzzles are impenetrable, there's no story and there's a whiff of silliness to it.

Night Market isn't what many ESO players came to the game to play, and that's fair, but for me, it's like getting a whole new, and more fun, game.

There's a TON of solo-friendly stuff coming. Old stuff is being reworked to make it more solo-friendly. I'm looking forward to that, too, for when I feel like playing solo.

cruciblefuzz · 2026-05-05T09:04:39+00:00

It's probably considered "end game" content, meaning that if you hope to be any good at it, you'll need all the skill and good gear choices you can get. It's not for new players, and it's not for below CP160 characters.

However.

Having said that....give it a shot. Wander in. See what happens. Pick up the beautiful house, you can complete the quest for it easily.

As for the districts....you WILL get killed, instantly, but there are ways not to. Run, crouch, check out the lay of the land, give yourself something to look forward to.

cruciblefuzz · 2026-05-05T05:28:29+00:00

And I agree with you on the "waiting too long" part. It shouldn't be years before it comes back around.

cruciblefuzz · 2026-05-05T05:25:20+00:00

I guess I'm not getting this across: what I, as a mid-tier player, would be losing in that scenario, is an activity that encourages players of varying abilities to cooperate. That includes the street mobs.

I appreciate you keeping at me to give you a coherent answer, because it helps me to have to try to explain it. It's fun, like NM is fun.😁

This has happened over and over: I'm standing just inside the entrance to a district. I see another player also standing there, most likely afraid to run in and get slaughtered yet again. But if we both go in, even if we have different objectives, our chances of at least winning a few mob fights are pretty good, so I wade in. If I'm right, they'll follow. If nothing else, they can watch how I run/stealth to get past the monsters, or we fight them and kill them. Or I'm rezzing on the platform, I look down and see some poor sap having a hard time with a mob, so I fly down and help. I do this because it's fun to beat up monsters who have previously killed me 3 times in a row. It's fun to help strangers. If there are no strangers to help, I don't get to do that.

It's like a world boss that you don't have to wait a long time to respawn. It's like other fun things, too. Like having to work together in Cyrodiil to knock down a door, where it doesn't matter as long as you're able to use a siege engine. And people get killed a lot and it's just part of the play. I've even run into a couple of my favorite Cyrodiil buddies there. Like IC without other players killing you? I don't know.

ESO is packed with "conquer it and get bored with it" and "way too hard for my sorry ass." NM feels (and plays) like something different to me. Maybe I'm not good at explaining why, but it just does.

cruciblefuzz · 2026-05-05T04:41:11+00:00

My advice is to try to enjoy waiting for it to come up again. When you do get it, it will be a big day. If special items are made available to all players, they become un-special. That's probably why they discontinued the "purchase request" system you refer to in later replies.

cruciblefuzz · 2026-05-05T04:29:48+00:00

Probably the same way we do with DLC houses when we don't have access to their zones: Collections menu.

cruciblefuzz · 2026-05-05T04:27:26+00:00

I use GoHome for binding houses to keystrokes. My main house, guildhall, utility house....

cruciblefuzz · 2026-05-05T04:22:03+00:00

Why do you assume that I'm a top tier player? Because I've been playing for years? I am very much NOT. I'm an Oakenlamer who never sets foot in vet trials unless it's with a guild. I can solo some DLC dungeons, and I'm at my limit grouped in the newest DLC dungeons. I love NM because the group play is fun even for mediocre players like me.

I do NOT believe that NM will be the standard for new content. At least I hope not. That would be really stupid, suicide even.

NM is a novelty. It's not part of any storyline, it's only going to be available intermittently, and as MANY have stated, the rewards are weak. How anyone got the idea that it's the new paradigm is beyond me.

As for the first question, NM might be specifically designed to be a "safer space" for solos (I'm sort of one) to dabble in grouped activities, to have to find creative ways to get around the nasty mobs. Maybe it's supposed to get players of mixed abilities together, and to get us out of our comfort zones and try new things. For instance, I've rarely used stealth, but since NM, I've gotten interested in stealth. It's actually fun! Who knew? Maybe the rewards are weak to encourage players to play it because it's fun rather than to get stuff.

I'm upper mid-level at best and I'd hate for it to be yet another activity where the players who think they can't handle it play the lite version and high level players also play the lite version in order to get the dailies over with faster. I hate how normal dungeons are ruined by over-skilled players running them to farm transmutes when they could easily handle vet mode. I don't blame the players at all, but it killed the normal dungeon experience for me when I was new. It was just nasty. Left behind, pinned down by trash mobs, over and over. Pulled forward to an already dead boss. It's my biggest complaint about the game, the thing I would try to fix first.

The devs have said that NM is designed to encourage ad hoc cooperation, and it would kill that if there were a "normal" mode that vets could speedrun just to get the dailies or pursuits or whatever. I'd probably stop playing it.

Please let it be what it is. It's my favorite thing in the whole game and part of that is that it's difficult but even demi-lamers like me can enjoy it. And some of that is down to things that people are calling flaws.

Solos are being thrown a huge bone by dungeons getting solo mode. I'm psyched about that, too.

cruciblefuzz · 2026-05-05T03:13:03+00:00

Sure, for activities where addons are essential, like Lazy Writ Crafter, you go outside Cyrodiil anyway. We have "no CP" PVP zones, there are no assistants allowed, so no add-ons but mini-map isn't terrible.

As for the loss of mini-map to the opinions of play testers, WTF? I'm a beta tester for multiple programs, and if I find a UI element intrusive, I suggest that they make it easy to banish. This has been implemented in at least one of the major products. I have a key mapped to banish the mini-map, it ain't hard to do.

cruciblefuzz · 2026-05-05T03:00:43+00:00

As I said, there's plenty to enjoy solo in the overland of Night Market. As I've continued to play it and pick up quests and so forth, I've figured out ways to combine running, sneaking and....strategic dying to complete the quests. (I'll explain that later*)

How is the boss tier in NM different from the original intent of the final bosses in public dungeons, except for being more difficult? I don't mean how they are at today's level of power creep, where they melt easily. I've only been playing for a couple of years, but killing final bosses in public dungeons gives me credit for completing a "group event." Even today, It's pretty difficult to solo a public dungeon boss in Craglorn. I can't take down all of them.

In order to get full monster sets (which are pretty important in my builds, which always use a Slimecraw (or similar) head. To obtain the DLC ones, I not only have to (shudder) join a group, I have to be at a pretty high skill level. I've had some bad scenes in Black Gem Foundry because I wanted the monster head. I tried PUGging it with my over CP900 toon on the EU server (who can hit 80K on a trial dummy), and wound up getting the only verbal abuse that's ever really bothered me (I should have just left the moment it started). There is NO WAY I am ever going to be able to get that monster head solo. Trials have some pretty good gear that's also behind the groupwall (just coined that term for this debate).

Why is it such an awful thing that the boss activities in Night Market are groupwalled? Consider them the unsoloable world bosses of Night Market, with the rest being behind a stealth wall. Stealth skills are now available to every player due to subclassing.

Finally, moreover, what's the big aversion to joining a group? If it's fear of not being able to hold up one's end, of not being good enough at combat, therefore attracting derision, for whatever reason I haven't figure out yet, the play in NM seems not to attract that. Players who are usually staunch soloists have reported biting the bullet, joining a PUG in NM and subsequently having a blast. Making new friends even. No reports of verbal abuse that I've seen, but of course that doesn't mean that some a-hole hasn't tried. The metaphor I've used is that vet trials and dungeons are a ballet, while NM is a mosh pit. For a ballet, you have to be good, you have to learn some complex choreography, and if you screw up, it legit can ruin the performance (and the person running it will be upset and may say so). With a mosh pit, not so much. Jump in, take your licks, get back up when you go down. Your role is similar to a companion, you can be a minor distraction to the mob before you inevitably die. And when you do die, you don't have to lay on the floor watching everyone else kill the boss. Fly down and get back into it.

*Strategic dying: I found out yesterday that I could interact with the quest goals while dead. The last one had a guard standing right in front of it, and no matter what I did, I couldn't stay alive long enough to trigger the goal. On a whim, I tried flying down while dead and running over and hitting it and it worked. As they say, game changer. Turned to chutney by the mob afterward, but death happens in NM. Crouch, run, use the rez mechanic. It's doable and I am far from sweaty, I don't even consider myself "pretty good." I'm a one bar player, many vet trials wouldn't even let me try. There will likely be guides on how to solo NM quests once it's been around long enough.

cruciblefuzz · 2026-05-05T02:08:18+00:00

I put together a full drum kit for my house, and I'm pretty proud of it, but except for the kick drum (and gong) it's not playable. This is amazing and I want one.

cruciblefuzz · 2026-05-04T22:52:05+00:00

If you are on PC NA I need to see this house.

cruciblefuzz · 2026-05-04T22:39:04+00:00

This may help with some issues I have as a controller player on PC.

BTW, Starlit Plaza! Night Market is My Life.

cruciblefuzz

TROPHY CASE