Guild Wars 2

1) i want to beat and thus get highest level loot fromhardest bosses ingame
2) i do not want to switch from my safe and comfty braindead gear
3) i do not or at least till now, have not spent 2hours as long as it takes to watch 2x woodenpotatoes guide videos and read a mettabttle guide to learn the boss
4) i want 9 others to teach me ingame, pressumably taking more than above time
5) i am ok with 9 others wasting 4hours trying and not getting anything if i am a “too weak link in the chain”

6) the lfg options for raids are indeed horrible as they were not designed. Hopefuly in future we get a surprise lobby for raids

Now this is not to make fun or mock you, but to show you that why others are also frustrated and want to avoid such players.
The difficulty bar of raids is also meant and good to stay hard, so really only thing you can do is train/improve yourself with guide videos and training groups untill your dps, healing or tanking role is worth joining a group as a normaly experienced member

P.s.
As for trailblazer gear, it is meta popular between wvw solo condi roamers.
You can also always use it on your own when in pve.
On world bosses youre still hiding behind the actual dmg dealers and you wont solo the 50man gerent just cz you were able to live an extra hit…thegroup failed because they didnt avoid the big hits not because everyone wasnt trailblazer or dire
Theres a gear and place for everything, toughness is mostly used in wvw and pvp, not in raids, sry

Ohoni.6057:

His point was to discredit any prestige associated with earning the legendary armor (since you cannot just buy it from the trading post) by bringing up the fact that you can do unofficial transactions through deals with other players. (i.e. buying and selling raid spots)

It’s too bad you didn’t catch what my point was though: You can pay people to do this for anything so it’s a meaningless thing to bring up in any discussion. You can pay people to carry you in PvP, achievements, or even pay people to play your account to farm Nevermore. It’s completely and utterly pointless bringing this up.

Right, which IS the point, “Prestige” in this game is a complete non-issue, it is not a thing which exists, so anyone claiming “you cannot have access to this thing because mah prestige!” is making a pointless argument.

But we’re all agreed that you can buy the raid from other players and so do not need it endangered by development meddling?

Do that.

I recently came back to Guild Wars and have started to raid last week. It has been a struggle to find people willing to take on new players and took a while but fortunately there were people who were willing to accept me (raid teaching guild and PuGs). I can honestly say it’s been the most fun I’ve had in PvE in my entire GW lifetime, even the few hours of failing was way more fun than the majority of other PvE in my opinion of course and the feeling of finally killing a boss is the best buzz I’ve had in the game. I will continue raiding and will get the achievements for the legendary armor.

Do I think it was a good idea, putting legendary armor behind the raids?

Probably not, as it is one of the true end game goals of many players who don’t want to raid but play the game a lot. Crucially this is only the case because the previous legendary weapons were not gated behind difficult content, so asking a whole swathe of people to change their entire aspiration that they had become accustomed to is a tad unfair. If say, from release the legendaries had been locked behind hard content then they would not have been the goals for these players and people wouldn’t have complained.

Do I think having unique rewards from raids, unobtainable any other way is good?

I think it is essential. Before I took my long break from the game, my only interest in PvE was high level fractals (this was before the fractured update, so fractal 50 or 48 or w/e it was). It was never very profitable in terms of liquid gold and the biggest reason why people did them over other things was to get the fractal skins. Most of the skins looked rubbish but do you know why people still wore them? It’s the prestige you get from having something relatively exclusive and difficult to obtain. It’s a sign saying, hey I did this thing that was kinda tough and I did it a lot!

Now you can get them for 20 pristines each! Hooray now everyone has them and any prestige or exclusivity has eroded entirely and so nobody cares about them at all!

The same thing would happen if easy mode raids with access to the same rewards are implemented. There are people who collect skins for prestige (rarity usually) or fashion (sometimes both if lucky), let the people who want their prestige be happy too please!

Golden rule: A rare and prestigious skin is not a rare and prestigious skin if everyone can get it!

Ohoni.6057:

stuff

I gotta admire your ability to keep at this. Futile discussions are not my thing. Good Luck.

But how do you know that you played better than your team? People tend to judge themselves less critically than they do others.

You don’t put training wheels on a racing motorcycle.

STIHL.2489:

GoldenTruth.2853:

Myself and others have already discussed the fault in your logic.

All you have really done is whine that it would impede your ability to play the way you want, since you don’t care that others have only asked for the same, Not feeling it.

Not caring either.

OK, people have addressed your gear check proposal at face value, and you’ve yet to respond to any of the arguments (in summary: most bosses are not dps checks, the content itself filters players, it punishes players with alts, it reduces experimentation, and it chills fun runs).

I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt. You claimed this was not a petty response just because we oppose easy mode raids. I see I was mistaken in taking your suggestion at face value

Ohoni.6057:

And no matter how much work you think it may take to implement, it can’t be more work than actually implementing brand new content, so it’s a workload savings too.

(Link)

I don’t know why you insist on making any sort of reference to how hard or easy something is to implement when you were specifically told not to. Are you deliberately trying to mislead people, or are you just forgetful?

Gaile Gray.6029:

With all due respect, unless you’re a developer for GW2 you are not qualified to make a statement about the time needed, difficulty involved, or feasibility of such a feature.

Sarrs.4831:

This is untrue. An easy mode which is, aside from tuning, mirrored from hard mode, and provides the same rewards, does detract from the hard modes.

Firstly, there’s the obvious point that while an easy mode may be a negligible amount of effort from an outsider’s point of view (I’m skeptical that it is, and I’m inclined to take any estimates from ANet at face value), it still does move developers away from other content and to raids. Raiders don’t exclusively enjoy raids; they’re not automatons who only enjoy that form of content. If they were raiders and exclusively raiders, then GW2 is, plainly, not the game for them.

Secondly, it does reduce the pool of players willing to enter hard mode. It does create fractures between community groups as ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ modes solidify. I’ve said before that a big issue with the reward structure of dual moding is that once this content becomes ‘old’, the difficulty divide means that one mode gets ignored when this wouldn’t happen with a single mode. It doesn’t actually solve any issue, any better than other solutions would, like STIHL’s suggested solo-mode story mode. And I asked you about this before, about a single raid that’s specifically tuned at a lower difficulty than the current raids, and I think you didn’t mind that idea though I’d have to double check. That’s a compromise in particular that I don’t think is a bad idea- But I’m speaking of myself, and not necessarily Tex who you were quoting, so forgive me if I missed the specificity.

Thirdly, it enables a development direction that neglects the rest of the game in favor of the raids. If you ask for raid modes that cover every difficulty, don’t be surprised if all you start seeing in future releases is raids. I’ve been saying this all through the thread; if you want to see what kind of impact on content development multi-modal raiding has, go look at WoW.

And there’s the whole “progression is doing the fight on easy mode, then on hard mode”, which really detracts from how fun the raids are.

I’ve already told you that it’s fun.

This is pretty much what i’ve been saying since the entire easy mode thing came about.

Sans some petty personal attacks at the select few….

I’d be perfectly fine with a cutscene only mode where in if you want the lore you get a guided camera walkthrough, see the bosses spawn, die and any cinematics that may exist.

But i’m so far against the notion of an easy mode that there is only one way i’d even begin to fathom it’s existence. No Achievements, 1 copper and 1 karma for your time, no unique loot. It’s easy mode, you should not be rewarded for this. However, those who want the easy mode would say “But that’s a waste of time”. Yeah, i’m aware it is, just as you are aware the concept of an easy mode is “a waste of time”. So much so, that rather than listen to Gaile’s advice to stop speculation on how quickly it would be done, you’d rather ignore it and place bets.

+1 Texzero. I Just don’t understand greedy people. I love the pvp legendary backpiece, but i hate pvp. Still, i’m not asking for an easy pvp mode where i could earn it. I Just know there are things in this game that i will never have and i deal with it, that’s all…

Ohoni.6057:

You’re only version of compromise is when you are happy. Anyone else can be told to shove off.

But I’m not taking ANYTHING from you! You have no justification to complain! It’s like you have a $100 bill, and I say “Can I have a $100 bill too?”
“Mine? No.”
“No, not yours, a new one will be given to me, you can keep yours.”
“Still, no, I like that you don’t have one.”
“Well how about a $20 bill?”
“Nope, I can only be happy if I have this $100 bill and you have nothing.”

I’m sorry, but that is not a reasonable position to hold your ground on.

It’s quite hilarious that you bring up compromise but are unwilling to give into not making any progress or getting unique rewards. That’s the exact opposite of compromise.

Ok, fine. If we’re going to abandon compromise then we’ll abandon compromise. No easy mode, just nerf the one and only form of raiding into being easy mode, problem solved, no compromise necessary.

I too like hyperbole that misses the point.

If you get an easy mode….something has to go. Pretty straight foward form of compromise. Yes ?

So explain why you should get anything unique, let alone progress toward something that is a symbol of prestige and hard work ?

I know you can’t because frankly, your whole position is that of greed. You want the rewards without putting in the time or effort. Which frankly is why you are in no position to talk about compromise.

Ohoni.6057:

I just wish you guys were more interested in compromising on this and working towards a mutually agreeable solution, because the more rigid you insist on being, the more likely you’re going to be shattered entirely.

Pot, meet kettle.

When people try to come to a middle ground with you the response is

“Nope”.

When people try to tell you, you’re idea of easy modes should not be rewarding your response is:

“Im getting my way and Legendary Armor, your ideas are horrible, mine are superior”

So why would anyone work with you when you don’t want to work with anyone who doesn’t agree with you ?

Ohoni.6057:

And you were the one agreeing that most of this game does have a relatively flat curve. There is training up to level 80, then almost everything is of roughly equal difficulty, aside from a few dungeons and Fractals that are slightly harder, and then HoT open world which can in places be harder still, and then raids which are way above and beyond any of that. So prior to HoT, very little of the game was higher than the “standard” difficulty that the entire game was at, the level that a player would have to be comfortable with if he was going to be playing the game at all.

Actually that’s false. Dungeons and Fractals are harder than the rest of the game, certain open world bosses are harder than the rest of the game, and even among the level 80 zones, there is a progression, Southsun is harder than Cursed Shore, Dry Top is harder than Southsun, and Silverwastes is harder than Dry Top. Each new zone added higher difficulty mobs and higher difficulty events. And there was no “standard” difficulty, you said it yourself that there is training until 80, which means every level between 1 and 80 was different in difficulty, so there is no “standard” here. Prior to HoT the game had a progression, after HoT there is also a progression. You wanting to skip the progression doesn’t change the fact that the game already has a progression curve, it only needs to be improved.

If you continue to insist this, then sure, short term memory must be the issue.

Not my problem if you can’t remember.

And yes, LFG does solve some problems but it solves DIFFERENT problems than the core ones being discussed in this thread. It’s again handrails for a staircase instead of a wheelchair ramp. It helps people, but not the people that are asking for help here.

There is only one problem, Raid accessibility. And the LFG can fix it (as well as adjusting the difficulty curve). It’s the same problem discussed in this thread and these are ways of fixing it. It helps people who actually have a problem, and it does it well. I don’t know what you are talking about anymore, do you want the problem fixed or not?

Asked and answered. Repeatedly.

There are many proposed solutions to the actual problem and none give you your free armor, that’s why you disagree with them. Or rather you call them off-topic for your own selfish reasons.

Ithilwen.1529:

Well, I’ve completed 14 achievements on Season III. That includes 4 profession achievements. Three of those; Necromancer, Ranger and Elementalist I pretty much had to learn while playing as I don’t normally play those classes.

I’ve fought through 30+ loss streaks, seen my win percentage fall from 50% to something like 10% at one point. Full time work hours have gone into struggling to achieve over a period of weeks.

Now, I’m expected to cross 3 divisions and buy wings. I don’t have the tickets for wings and there is no way I’m going to cross 7 divisions in the two remaining seasons. It’s taken me from day 1 to today to get to Sapphire T3.

I’m not good enough? I’m in the division I should be in? Then why should I play and give the elites cannon fodder to pound on?

It’s very clear that I will never win the wings.

So all that work is for pretty much nothing. THE ACHIEVES DON’T CARRY TO NEXT YEAR, SO THIS IS A COMPLETE WASTE. I feel like I got led into trying an impossible task just to be another body in pvp for the elites to beat on.

Right now I feel I ought to give up on this game.

You want a hot body
You want a Bugatti
You want a Maserati
You better work lth…

Seriously though, why do you think because you log into the game you’re entitled to receive something?

You have every opportunity to earn the rewards, but you have to EARN them. You can’t just show up and reward track your way there. That’s the way it should be.

Don’t learn professions in ranked, go practice them first. That’s your fault for losing so much.

Ohoni.6057:

No, I just want easy mode raids. I don’t accept that MMOs should be a grading system.

That’s the main flaw with your logic. You can’t accept how video games work (not only MMOs btw). There is always a progression in games, there is a reason why they start easy (with some weird exceptions), and gradually get harder. Most games use a grading system, and especially RPGs. You gradually move on to higher difficulty. How did you miss such a basic game design concept is beyond me. Can’t skip grades in school, can’t skip grades in a game, unless you are exceptionally good (that’s why a hard gate for Raids is dumb, some people are just too awesome/skillful).
Once you accept that simple fact we can finally move forward.

And yet many people who DID LS1 just fine still did not enjoy the difficulty of HoT.

Probably those who forgot LS1 completely, or those who were getting carried, hiding in big blobs during LS1. In other words those who didn’t exactly “play” LS1 content, so they are irrelevant.

LFG is a whole separate issue

The issue is called “Raid accessibility” and fixing LFG is a very good solution to it.

But that assumes that “teaching” players is the primary issue.

There is no assumption, it is the primary issue. You not getting Legendary Armor is not an actual issue, Raid accessibility is.

STIHL.2489:

Perhaps then what the raid really needs is a hard set Gear Check built in, like Fractals have with Agony Resist.

This is something I always wondered. Raids are above dungeons and fractals in difficulty. They are 10-man content and not 5-man content, they require more preparation, thought and skill. But you still get players with zero experience in GW2 instanced content that want to do Raids, skipping the entire learning process.

What is needed is for the players to get it in their heads that Raids are the next type of content after dungeons and fractals. You can’t go to 10-man content without mastering 5-man content, that should’ve been obvious, but apparently for some it’s not.

And really a player who reaches 80+ Fractals shouldn’t have problems adapting to the Raid mechanics anyway. They should have enough Ascended gear, enough experience, a good build, and so on. Only thing missing is the number of players, and changing how LFG works is a good step forward to making finding more players easier.

And what do they do when they fail? They ask for “difficulty settings” instead of following the learning process as they should. But something like agony isn’t a good solution either for multiple reasons, but one of the highest ones, is it prevents players from using multiple characters in Raids. In Raids composition is KEY, which means the best players use multiple characters with different builds to fill roles, if you needed something like AR to outfit them all, it would cause serious problems.

No. To me it’s more like a player issue. Players themselves need to understand the learning process and do things “in order”.

People have this issue in ruby and diamond too, even in legendary. When I was ruby I played with 4 sapphire against 3 ruby 2 sapphire, when I was ruby tier 5-6 I played with 3 ruby 1 diamond, against 3 diamond 2 ruby, when I was diamond I played with 2 diamond 3 ruby, against 4 diamond 1 ruby, when I was diamond tier 6-7 I played against 2-3 legendary, my hole team diamond…
How I won and got Legendary
- 75% solo ,25% duo-trio, when I had a winning strike I played, when I lost 2 times in a row, stopped playing for 3-4 hours, to not get the same team/opposite team.
- played ele and reaper from ruby mainly, with ele I carried the hole team
- I believed in my self, that I’m good, and that I can carry

And yes, I’m a toxic player, who is trash I write it down, so many ppl don’t like me, but before I write it down, I really ask the team mates what to do, where to go, they don’t do it, many times, and because of that we loose points; and sometimes we loose because of that trash player… I really don’t mind to write things down, I feel better that way… and note this, this trash players are still in ruby or max diamond, and never gonna make it to legendary, because I will play against them! I will not let trash player get to legendary, there are enough legendary players who are still trash….

Stand The Wall.6987:

From a viewers perspective, increasing the player cap would be a good thing.

@GoldenTruth welcome to the “trying to have conversation with Ohoni” thread. Anyway, spoiler: Ohoni doesn’t exactly want an “easier raid so more people can play it” nor he wants “easier raid so people can do the harder raid”. What he wants is a raid that he can easily completes that gives the same type of reward as the current raid.

I don’t think this is necessary. As you say it would add a lot of work. I don’t think there’s too much trouble finding ten people, especially not once they have an LFG that can directly stack up ten people at once, the problem is that you need to find ten GOOD people who know what they’re doing or the whole thing is moot. If the content is flexible enough that you don’t need ten great players, you can make due with five or so really solid players and another five “meh” players and it’ll still work out, forming a ten-man party will be no drama.

Eh, I think that this is very important to allow for people without dedicated groups who want to raid but have inconsistent schedules find groups. When the group number is adaptive players don’t need to feel pressured to choose between irl things and the fear of losing a spot if they can’t show up.

The punishment is the part that NEEDS to go though. The challenge factor of the actual mechanics do not bother me, it’s the consequences of failing them that does. I’m far more likely to succeed at something when I know that I’m allowed to screw it up, than if I feel that screwing it up is a big deal. I have no interest in them making the mechanics “simpler,” like making her flame wall smaller or slower, or making VG’s green circles only require one person in it, or similar cop-outs. I want the conditions for “passing” that element to remain identical in as many cases as possible, I just want the consequences of failure to be noticeable, but survivable.

Without similar punishments mechanics will be completely ignored. They would become tank and spank fights and you would end up with easy-mode not even acting as a training session. Making the mechanics easier to execute, but punishing is the only real way to combat this. Nerfing raids to the point of pointlessness can be seen in WoW’s LFR, something that many people feel greatly harmed the game.

Basically, you’re describing a system that would take WAY more work, and which nobody actually wants because it does not solve the problems people actually have with the existing system.

I know it would take too much work. That’s why I think that they probably can’t create a good easy-mode, as all the suggestions I’ve seen here simply don’t work well, and would just be a short-term band-aid that would harm one of the two hypothetical difficulty modes.

Ohoni.6057:

but that’s just a matter of swapping out one tool they already have for another tool they already have, rather than creating entirely new tools.

It IS an entirely new tool if you change how the tool works.

Again, it’s not “we screwed up, let’s wipe and reset,” it’s “I got hit by Sabetha’s wall, that would have killed me in hard mode, I’ve really got to learn to avoid that better than I have been.”

And what’s the difference in wiping by that flamewall and “understanding” that you shouldn’t be hit by it? Oh right in the second case you will get your rewards even if you fail miserably. That’s what this is all about? The only difference between easy mode and non-easy mode (as far as “training” goes) is that in easy mode you will also get rewards.

And playing easy mode “as if it’s hard mode” is a joke. There is no such thing. If you want to play “as if hard mode” play hard mode.

It wouldn’t be constant, it would be a toggle. When the system launches, the raid collection stuff would be toggled off, when they feel confident the easy mode is within balance they toggle them on. And unlike dungeons where there were two dozen paths to manage at once, this is only nine total boss fights to look at (and three more each additional wing).

And then a group of players will find “easy mode” not easy enough for them. Then you will do “easier easy mode”, then “more easy than easier easy mode”, then “even more easy than easier easy mode”, and so on. Or the alternative put the “easy mode” into a spiral of never-ending nerfs til it reaches that point. Then let’s do balancing again from scratch, rinse repeat for each Raid wing.

When everyone is telling the truth about how experienced they are. Did a PUG for Gors 2 days ago with my LFG clearly saying in all caps experienced players only. Played with them for a good hour and could not kill Gors. Did another PUG for Gors an hour ago with LFG clearly saying in all caps experienced players only. But this time, we kill Gors on our first try with no problem. Interesting isn’kitten

It’s disappointing, yes. I’m not a fan of many of the original legendaries and was eagerly waiting for the next set to be released. However, I understand the reasoning and agree it’s better to focus on the bigger picture and work on the LS.

Thank you for communicating, even when it’s bad news.

Elku.6429:

How is this legal? As part of the product sold, you agreed to provide us with 15 legendary weapons over the course of the expansion, you can’t renege on that.

One: they never promised we’d definitely have all of the legendaries within a set time frame.
Two: it’s not illegal at all because it’s their property, and there’s probably even a part of the ToS we signed that explains how any and all information given is subject to change at the will of the company.

helping? most of the time i am strolling arround in the open world, i see players wich play totally kitten the whole time.
they are no help, they are a burden.

how many times did this event in hot fail where you have to break the vinetooth. how many times did those players already bring down mordremoth in dragons stand, but fail at the same time this event over and over.
how many times are we like 5 at some of the wyverns in hot and 2 people keep dying to nothing, while the rest does the whole work?

and kitten, those open world guys are kittening toxic. last time i did dragon stand, i did like every event and rly helped out…i tried my best, just like in raids. after wie killed the boss in the towers, i went afk…visible to all on top where the boss died.
holy kitten that mapchat. all people slacking arround, playing “play how i want i don’t care about others” builds with stats on the armor so they do absolutly no dmg but can tank everything, getting carried by a few in the mob and then this mapchat.
you probably got insulted by 4 other people in dungeons (not that it is okay), because they where toxic right? ever got insulted by a whole map? completly new level.

guess i was at fault since i had to go afk for some time. as long as you are in the zerk, your slacking will be unseen…but dare you go afk! thats getting carried.
like all these guys standing arround and waiting for the boss, without hitting any mobs in silverwastes at vinewrath. probably all hate them, but no one ever speaks up.

but back to topic. open world content has zero impact at raids. people can play it without problems. and hoestly, i don’t see the game breaking apart from 2 maps now and maybe 3 somewhen in the future, wich is not really filled with story content, just because some people can’t kill the bosses in those maps.
gear yourself up, adapt, get some friends in and do it. easy as that.

it is really good en refreshing that at least at one point, you have to sozialize and hit up with players.

remeber fractals? remeber how nearly no one in a pug says hi or something like that along the lines. and how they just leave without any words. its nearly like the open world stuff. most people are there silent, too. just some fish swimming along with other fishies.
thats not really social.

Sithis.3564:

I’ve read quite a lot from this thread. There are bunch of ppl here that have a mindset “Raid’s are for me, go skritt urself if you can’t do them”. This is quite horrible to be honest. I don’t mind raids being hard, with exclusive loot and achievements. There are gamers that like hard content and they should be rewarded for their effort. What I don’t understand is why is there so much anger in them. Nobody wants to take this game mode from You. What a lot of “casuals” want is to experiance the STORY that is within this content.
Should I be on forums screaming at hardcore players to stop playing Core Game because it’s to easy for them and they should not be able to play the Personal Story because it has not Hard Mode"? Is that fair?
This game was “casual” from the start. It’s only natural it should build up from that.

Let us at least play a “Story Mode”. Speaking for myself. I don’t need a Legendary Armor nor Achievements. What I want is to see the content, this new map, new NPC’s, their dialogues and what is the story behind it all. Story that connects to GW1.

So much hard work was put in all of this but there are plenty of ppl new and old, that play this game from beta, that can’t experiance it at all because they don’t or are unable to and can’t dedicate themselves to beat this content.

Look I’m all for an easy mode, but painting the ones that oppose it as if they only say : ’’Raid’s are for me, go skritt urself if you can’t do them’’ is dishonest. It only prove that you either don’t understand their reasons, you only read part of their post or only picked that one that are really saying what you say, which are in minority.

Most people that oppose it are against because they saw the exact same type of idea in other game and this screw up the raid there so they are anxious that anet (which have a huge record of behin the worst when it come to reward balance) will screw it up pretty good. Especially when you see company like Blizzard that screw it up, a company that most people view as bigger, with more experience and in general better at designing than Anet.

A couple of quick points on what you said.

1) You just want to see the story, but that’s not the point of most people that argue for an easy mode. You are one of the few that just want that. Some want to be able to do it in a group of 5, other in solo, other want to just have an easy raid but with still most mechanics, some want all the same reward, other want everything except Legendary armor, other want just Legendary armor.

2) There is no story in Raids. Well not true, there is a story, but it come in really really small dose. Better look at a video like those of Wooden Potatoes. I understood way more about the story with his video than doing the raid.

3) This game was was for everybody casual AND hardcore from that beginning. If you really want to push it, as a guild officer I see a lot more of hardcore players staying in the game, while most casual come and go.

Ohoni.6057:

Well during the LS releases everyone except general PVE players was a second class citizen. Did you complain back then about it?

Again, no, because . . . Look, you do understand the idea that the majority of the population deserves the majority of the resources, right? I mean, this should be common sense, but you really seem like there’s something about it you aren’t getting. Where is the disconnect?

During LS releases it wasn’t that the majority got most of the attention, they got ALL of the attention.The majority of the population gets the majority of the developers, why is having smaller dedicated teams (as we apparently do now) for other specific parts of the game such a hard concept to grasp?