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Now that the mothership is providing the “Field Puzzle” attribute for puzzle caches I’m curious if those that normally exclude puzzles are more likely to include puzzles in their caching adventures.I’m going to be converting a number of my traditionals to puzzles and am curious to see if this new attribute will entice any of the non-puzzlers into attempting a field solvable puzzle.
I don’t even look at attributes when I geocache for the most part. I just load caches into both of my Garmins (Nuvi and Venture) and I just cache on the fly.
The only time I really pay attention to the attributes is when I want to tackle a tough cache for a milestone. Then I look to see what I need or don’t need to cache (climbing gear, flashlight, high muggle area, etc)
I enjoy a good puzzle now and then. Field solves are fine too. I choose caches in the same random way I always have–pick a general area, see what’s there. Read the cache pages and eliminate some, based on so many factors like D/T, how much time I have, conditions lately (wet, mosquitoey), recent finds/DNFs…etc. If there are puzzles, I give them a good look. If I can do the solve within a reasonable amount of time, I attempt it. Puzzle caches with a story or where you learn something, for me, are best done one at a time, if I expect to retain anything. Something like a code or sudoku is good if I want to flex my brain cells a little. It wasn’t until recently that I even gave attributes a look. The new one isn’t any more or less likely to make me seek out a cache that uses it.
I didn’t vote since personally I think they’re adding a lot of uneccesary icons. Do we really need an icon for a park and grab or fuel nearby? As far as puzzles go I think most cachers are already going to know that the cache is a puzzle and what type before even noticing the icon. I found over a dozen puzzles in the last week, not by design, but just because they were there. I even had a ftf on an internet puzzle. I don’t plan on adding the puzzle icon to any of my hides. Mine all get plenty of activity now. However having said all of this I can see where this may be of some advantage in an area like the Fox Valley where there are lots of puzzles. Just my opinions.
I didn’t vote since personally I think they’re adding a lot of uneccesary icons. Do we really need an icon for a park and grab or fuel nearby? As far as puzzles go I think most cachers are already going to know that the cache is a puzzle and what type before even noticing the icon. I found over a dozen puzzles in the last week, not by design, but just because they were there. I even had a ftf on an internet puzzle. I don’t plan on adding the puzzle icon to any of my hides. Mine all get plenty of activity now. However having said all of this I can see where this may be of some advantage in an area like the Fox Valley where there are lots of puzzles. Just my opinions.
I have to check the key to see what most of the attribute icons mean these days, and I often have to cut the number of attributes I want to list. When placing a cache or looking for one, I usually consider the physical attributes more than what the other ones are: How long is the hike, do we have to look out for ticks and/or poison ivy, check out hunting or stealth, winter friendly/available. It’s also nice to know if there is a picnic area nearby for our longer trips in the nice weather.
We check out puzzles along with other caches, but if people don’t like to do puzzles, they have probably screened them out before they get to the icons anyway. Might go back and add this to some of our hides, though, if it gets non-puzzlers to take a look at these caches.
Unfortunately there is no all of the above, I’d do all 3 as it all depends on the mood swings that day.
For me, it wont make a difference. Like others, I dont look at the attributes at all. I post them on the caches that I own, since I know a lot of people do look at them, but since you cannot see the attributes with my Garmin, I dont look at it. I just download em all.
As far as puzzles go, it depends. Generally, if I have time, I download them, give them a quick look and if they are field solves, I leave them in to try. If I can figure them out without spending an hour looking up stuff I dont care about, then I leave them in. If they are too hard for me that day or too time consuming, I just delete them from the GSAK file.
Some areas are more afflicted with impossible or non-fun puzzles than other areas, and after awhile you get the idea just not to download any puzzles in that area. Some areas have more fun puzzles, interesting challenges and field solves, so it is worth the time to leave them in and look at them.
zuma
We like puzzles. We usually read through things before hand to get a feel for whether or not we have some work to do ahead of time, but if there’s time, I like to try and get a couple solves ahead of a trip. I have learned not to rely on attributes too much anyway, because some placers don’t use them they way I would. We found, for instance, that last winter most of our finds didn’t have the snowflake one way or the other, so I stopped filtering for the “winter available” attribute. We bascially like to clean out an area, so I keep ’em all!
I enjoy the puzzles, gives me something to do when the kiddos are asleep or conditions prevent me from going out caching! I hope this attribute will encourage people that don’t attempt puzzles to go after some of these since most of my favorite caches so far have been puzzle caches.
Updated our cache attributes today for Field Solves. No big deal.
Benny has a Bookmark List for On the Spot puzzle caches that is convenient, too.
The problem is, you can’t really use this for a pocket query. I think the idea was that you could some how eliminate the “desk” puzzles from your query, but unless you get a query of only mystery caches, there is no way to do this.
@Team Deejay wrote:
The problem is, you can’t really use this for a pocket query. I think the idea was that you could some how eliminate the “desk” puzzles from your query, but unless you get a query of only mystery caches, there is no way to do this.
I actually have separate PQ’s. One that includes everything except puzzles and another that only includes puzzles. So from my perspective it works, but I do have to manually deal with 2 PQ’s.
Not a biggie with me. For cache dense areas, I always have more than one PQ. For example, in the Green Bay area, it has so many puzzles that all I have to do is run a non-puzzle PQ and a puzzle only PQ and I’m good to go.
All depends on what types of caches dominate any one area. Typically it is either traditionals or puzzles. Rarely do I see a concentration of multi’s.
But anyways, when I go out caching, I filter out puzzles on GSAK and off I go. It does mean I’ll miss out on some field solves. But if I know an area has lots of WSQ’s, I’ll filter them in because they are field solves for the most part.
Perhaps if GSAK can also filter in the field solve puzzle attribute, I might be more inclined to take advantage of that then.
Actually GSAK does allow you to filter by attribute. Of course, that doesn’t mean that people actually set the attribute.
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