At some point last year, after I switched mains from a hunter to a pally, I decided that I was going to persue the "What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been", achievement.    With my previously stated problem with consistency in playtime, this seemed like the perfect aspiration for a casual player like me.   I could hop on every month or so, run a bunch of PvE-related quests and see things I never took the time to see before.   

Until this week, this is.     Children's Week has a reputation of containing one of the worst designed achievements in the entire game, "School of Hard Knocks".   In this, you need to complete four very specific tasks in a PvP Battleground with your Orphan out.   No biggie, except that it runs counter to the concept of a Battleground, because your focus shifts from "win as a team" to "do this thing I need to do".   There's also the problem of being successful when you aren't geared for PvP or when your faction routinely gets its ass handed to it.

My problem isn't that it's a difficult PvP achievement, it's that it's a difficult PvP achievement stuck in the middle of a solo-player's PvE goal.   With no option to brute force a solution, I might miss out on an entire year-long achievement because I had one week of real time to succeed in a playstyle I'm 1) not very good at 2) don't enjoy and 3) relies on the goodwill of 9 other people at a minimum.    It would be a better solution to set an attainable goal, such as "Gain 200 honor in each of these 6 battlegrounds with your orphan out."

This morning I was able to complete all of the tasks for the holiday except this one.   Five battlegrounds later and I didn't even come close to getting on of the four steps I need. If Children's Week comes and goes and I can't wrangle this one out, I'm likely to let my subscription lapse out of frustration.

At some point last year, after I switched mains from a hunter to a pally, I decided that I was going to persue the "What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been", achievement.    With my previously stated problem with consistency in playtime, this seemed like the perfect aspiration for a casual player like me.   I could hop on every month or so, run a bunch of PvE-related quests and see things I never took the time to see before.   

Until this week, this is.     Children's Week has a reputation of containing one of the worst designed achievements in the entire game, "School of Hard Knocks".   In this, you need to complete four very specific tasks in a PvP Battleground with your Orphan out.   No biggie, except that it runs counter to the concept of a Battleground, because your focus shifts from "win as a team" to "do this thing I need to do".   There's also the problem of being successful when you aren't geared for PvP or when your faction routinely gets its ass handed to it.

My problem isn't that it's a difficult PvP achievement, it's that it's a difficult PvP achievement stuck in the middle of a solo-player's PvE goal.   With no option to brute force a solution, I might miss out on an entire year-long achievement because I had one week of real time to succeed in a playstyle I'm 1) not very good at 2) don't enjoy and 3) relies on the goodwill of 9 other people at a minimum.    It would be a better solution to set an attainable goal, such as "Gain 200 honor in each of these 6 battlegrounds with your orphan out."

This morning I was able to complete all of the tasks for the holiday except this one.   Five battlegrounds later and I didn't even come close to getting on of the four steps I need. If Children's Week comes and goes and I can't wrangle this one out, I'm likely to let my subscription lapse out of frustration.