Randomness and Skill are not linked

Be Mine.
This is a part of the meta achievement for the Love is in the Air season event. The general concept is that one an hour (no more often, but due to sleep, very likely less often) you can get a gift from a NPC. This gift has a chance to contain a Bag of Candies. Draw from this bag and you will get 10 chances at 8 different candies. Pull all 8 and you get the achievement.

While writing this I received my second bag. Second, as in a total of two bags. That's over the entire event. I'd guess that I've received at least 10 boxes of chocolate. The RNG is not being nice to me.

There's a lot of complaining on the forums. Normally I'm the sort that looks at the forums and weeps for the future of humanity, but this time, it was different. The meta is part of a meta-meta for one of the proto-drakes. This means that the drake is RNG-based.

According to a Blue on the General forums (I've lost the thread or I'd have linked it), this is their way of keeping it rare. In general I think WoW is a great game and has amazing developers, but that is just plain stupid. Rare means randomly screwing people over, people who have put in the same, or perhaps more, time than others? Perhaps you need better priorities when rare starts to mean "Ha ha, better LUCK next year."

To get back to the title, to go with the complaints are a lot of arrogant jackasses. They are the ones who say things like "learn2play" or "it's supposed to be an achievement." The first is, well does the stupidity need explaining? The second is also stupid, but of a different sort. Achievements, at least as I know them in real life, and would expect in game, are based on some sort of effort. Sometimes it's a very small effort, sometimes it's a large effort. It's not about luck. I cannot imagine an interview with someone that won the lottery: "We're all quite amazed by your perseverance, this is truly an amazing achievement." Wouldn't the interviewer sound pretty dumb?

The Lunar Festival was well done. It required a decent bit of effort and exploration. It took time and sometimes a bit of ingenuity*. I felt like that was an achievement. This though, it's all very easy. Oh but right, random is hard, so if a season is too easy, you add randomness to balance it out. Random is not hard, it's random. Make the season harder for all I care. Require a drop off KT. But random? That's just stupid. That's not an achievement.

* I wasn't doing well finding a PUG for Gundrak. I either found no groups or I ended up with awe-inspiring noobs. Finally I ended up jumping into an already cleared instance and using my cloaking device and an invisibility potion to get to the elder. That was the last one I needed and it felt very good to get it.

As of finishing this post, I have finished opening my second bag and am still in need of "You're the best!" Maybe there's a hidden meaning here. I guess WoW does think randomness and skill are linked, so my lack of luck means a lack of skill, which is why I am not the best. But clearly I am lovely and romantic, judging from the all the dresses and picnic baskets. And I really like chocolate.

I can only pray that next year when I attempt to graduate that I roll high enough to get a diploma.

[edit] Not to bash the entire holiday, sorry. I do like how the arrow won't fire at someone who has a pet out; though this is me assuming that if you could it wouldn't give credit. That saves a lot of wasted arrows. The heartbroken-bracelet thing is kinda cool. I like things which draw people together. Farming the flowers was fun too. It's nice to get a group and a goal and get it done and at the end everyone walks out happy because they got what they came for rather than leaving going "oh well, maybe tomorrow, stupid RNG." Sound familiar?