Do you prefer Meters or RNG for progress?

Simply put relics have almost always been some form of do this specific series of content or acquire these specific items, fill this meter or get these RNG drops.

Usually the meters also have their own RNG about how much you get, but all the same you can roughly predict how many runs are needed to fill out the bar.

The current relic has both a gruesome RNG and meter step with the demiatma and the spheres to be filled.

It's pretty easy to say they'll never move past this design as they retread the same ground every expansion, so my real question is this; Do you like this? Is praying for Jolly ranchers better then doing 30 runs of Crystal Tower?

Similarly, do you have any ideas or examples of better steps?