Puzzle Cache Poll

[TyeDyeSkyGuy]

After seeing the results of the poll from benny’s “Least favorite types of cache”, I was stunned and thought I’d ask why Puzzles are your least favorite, since they are my favorite to hide/find.

SO the question is, why do you dislike puzzles?

[zuma]

Interesting question. I dont avoid puzzles, after all, I have 213 puzzle finds at this point of time, though I am guessing most of those were not true puzzles. Most were show up, and find clues, or a bonus for other caches found.

I like puzzles that are solvable in a reasonable amount of time, however I dont have a lot of time available to dick around on the computer doing extensive google searchs or doing complex cryptograms. I cache for the exercise and to see things that I would not otherwise see.

My biggest complaint about puzzles is that many of them are simply an arms race of obtuseness, with a very small handful of guys (for whatever reason gals never seem to have the need to show off like this) trying to make ever more impossible to solve caches. Some of them get to the point of “guess what obtuse idea I thought up now.”

Just my opinion. I do respect the right of folks to place these type of caches, though they are not my cup of tea.

zuma

[LDove]

I like them if they are puzzles that are not so complicated that you spend tons of time trying to solve and then if you get it wrong, you don’t get the “prize” in the end. I like it when puzzle hiders use the puzzle checker so you can be sure of your answer. I guess too many of them scare me off as they seem out of my league, but everybody likes something different so they must be fun to someone! Hopefully, I will get better at them.

[marc_54140]

I feel most cachers avoid / dislike puzzles because of their perceived difficulty.

That’s the reason I host Puzzle Events every so often. To dispel that concept, and to prove that a lot of puzzles can be solved, and are fun.

Next event – April 5th, in Appleton.

[zuma]

@marc_54140 wrote:

I feel most cachers avoid / dislike puzzles because of their perceived difficulty.

That’s the reason I host Puzzle Events every so often. To dispel that concept, and to prove that a lot of puzzles can be solved, and are fun.

Next event – April 5th, in Appleton.

This is great for the folks who have time for this sort of thing.

But I would not likely attend such a class. I have two classes today at work that I have to attend (one was at 0730 and lasted an hour, and the other is 3 hours this afternoon.) In a typical week, I have to attend 1 – 3 classes at work, in addition to working 3 12 hour shifts. I guess at this point in my life, I have more than enough mandatory education that I have to attend to maintain my licensure and skills for my job.

When recreating, I am not so much interesting in exercising the grey matter, because I get plenty of that at work. ICU nursing requires a lot of complex problem solving every day, and I enjoy it, but I make em pay me to do it. I suppose that if I was retired, then puzzles might be a bit more attractive, but right now, I get enough puzzles every day.

I have thought about putting out a couple puzzle caches based on critical care nursing, but then only Elfdoctors and a few others would solve them.

(First clue: 7.40/40/85/24) 😉

zuma

[LDove]

DO IT! I work in Emergency Care too – ha! 😆

[benny7210]

@zuma wrote:

I like puzzles that are solvable in a reasonable amount of time, however I dont have a lot of time available to dick around on the computer doing extensive google searchs or doing complex cryptograms. I cache for the exercise and to see things that I would not otherwise see.

Just my opinion. I do respect the right of folks to place these type of caches, though they are not my cup of tea.

zuma

Zuma summed it up best in his post….. And that’s just the same for me.

[elfdoctors]

ditto again what zuma said 😀

– and I probably wouldn’t even enjoy critical care nursing puzzle caches unless they were “solvable in a reasonable amount of time” (even if it did include arterial blood gas readings)! 😉

[Team Deejay]

As the owner of several puzzle caches, I think you have to recognize that there are puzzles that are easy and there are puzzles that are challenging. I think I only have one in the challenging category, and it is that way for a reason. The rest are either field puzzles or relatively easy codes. I think the problem comes in when people hide what I like to call “Read My Mind” puzzles. An example of this would be a puzzle with a big pile of digits on the page and someone has to skip so X digits between numbers to get the coordinates, where X is the 1,045th digit of pi, for the first number, the 1046 digit of pi for the second number, etc. But, of course, all the page has is the big mess of numbers. Somehow you need to guess that the solution method involves pi and that you start with the 1045th digit. Someone actually submitted this as a puzzle cache, mostly as a reaction to another “impossible” puzzle put out by someone else (still not found, by the way.) As you might guess, I didn’t publish this, but persuaded the owner to change it to a more traditional puzzle, which seems to have gone over well.

I suspect that a few people find it fun to beat their heads against the wall, trying to solve these impossible puzzles. Most just ignore them. But a few of us are compulsive enough to actual obsess over not being able to find a particular cache, just because it is close to their home. To these folks, I say, HIT THE IGNORE BUTTON AND MOVE ON! Once you ignore a cache, it will no longer show up on your listings and PQs, so you can just forget it was ever there. Then you can spend your time finding the caches you actually enjoy and not waste time being frustrated at a puzzle.

[Team Hemisphere Dancer]

I will plead the “Zuma” on this one.

[Sagasu]

I’m pretty much with zuma! on this one. With work and a family, life is too short to spend it all at the computer when I would really rather be outside, summer or winter, trekkin’ around seeing interesting places and finding caches, usually not at guard rails at dead ends. I run into those enough trying to find interesting and challenging caches without a navigator.

I have, however, done as many puzzles as zuma!, a result of where I live, and what opportunities present themselves for FTFs, lonely caches, and, of course, many good and interesting puzzles by several of my friends that are relatively solvable (sometimes with help), and do challenge and educate, inspire, or entertain. This is not always the case, however, and some, unknowingly till you spend several hours getting frustrated looking out the window at the sunny landscape and praying for coordinates, don’t reveal their difficulty till you’ve made more of a commitment to solving it than you would do had you not known what you were getting into at the start. Maybe an hours, or days, to solve the puzzle rating system would help those of us slow on the draw, but fleet of foot.

It’s not so much that I dislike puzzles, that I would rather be out on the trail caching. Any day. I think much of what I can learn or appreciate in most good puzzles could be condensed a bit to make it more fun. Some puzzles, like others suggest, are simply overboard and obtuse to the point of exasperation. Hence, Sagasu’s Sinister Semantic Search, a comment on challenges way beyond reason. Please do not try it until the additional hints make it more palatable, unless you are driven by such things. It appears even seldom|seen, Marc, and perhaps even gibonacci have surveyed the water and are wisely taking a wait and see stance for now.

I’ve done enough puzzles to have made a commitment to traditionals that inspire or delight, and sometimes even challenge. Multis are o.k. if they are not too long, have missing waypoints, or seem like puzzles after you get back into the car to drive around town for a whole series of waypoints, often driving past easier caches that would be more fun. Sometimes I just do them on the way. It’s a matter of preference, ultimately, and what you choose for a challenge. I used to feel obligated to do all the puzzles on my closest to home list, but now many of them have to go on the back burner for a rainy day, or when inspiration hits.

[seldom|seen]

These blasted forums… can’t go a single day lately without feeling compelled to write a novella.

As a purveyor of many puzzles I would be remiss not to say a few things about my appreciation and approach to them.

First, I tend to side with Zuma. I personally hate spending more than an hour on any given puzzle, especially when I feel like I am potentially not going to get to a solve without help. Precisely why I shelved SSSS. If I haven’t made any progress on a puzzle in that time it goes to the bottom of the stack. As for the convoluted code puzzles, I’m no fan. I want something more out of solving puzzles than just “breaking the code” and then going out to find the bison tube.

If I make progress on a puzzle and I feel like it’s enough to carry the solve through to the end but get hung up, then I just shoot the owner an e-mail request for a nudge. I’ve got puzzle to create with what little time I do have.

That’s it for me. If I don’t solve in an hour, I ignore it or get help from the owner. I think there would be a lot less consternation if others did the same. It pains me to know, for example, that -cheeto- has 10 hours into Espagutti and hasn’t asked for any help. But then, that just the way some people play. They want the complete solve and if that’s the case they have to live with the frustration of solving them solo. Their reward is the great feeling of accomplishment when they finally do make the solve. When -cheeto- does solve that one he will feel really good about it. This I know.

Here are my guiding principles for placing caches, of any type.

1. If someone asks you about an S|S cache you should remember it, either for location, container, historical content, or a good laugh.

2. If you can see an S|S cache before you are on top of it, then it wasn’t hidden like it was supposed to be. (there are exceptions).

3. You should never walk away from an S|S cache feeling disappointed or that it was a forgettable waste of your time.

This is how I approach the sport and why I enjoy creating them so much more than finding them.

There is such a great variety of puzzles out there that I think you’re cheating yourself by saying “I hate puzzle caches” and ignoring them altogether. Take another look at the puzzles in your area and you may find that you have been missing one of the most enjoyable aspects of the sport.

[-cheeto-]

It pains me to know, for example, that -cheeto- has 10 hours into Espagutti and hasn’t asked for any help. But then, that just the way some people play. They want the complete solve and if that’s the case they have to live with the frustration of solving them solo. Their reward is the great feeling of accomplishment when they finally do make the solve. When -cheeto- does solve that one he will feel really good about it. This I know.

man, there’s all these signs out there telling me to resume working on that one again…

I’ll tell everyone about this and why this one for me is the ultimate puzzle cache.

I am a research nut. When a new puzzle cache comes out and is a research cache, I solve it. Half the solves I don’t even keep and lose and don’t even go find the cache. I solved every one of the Simpson’s trivia caches as they came out in the valley and I knew almost nothing about the show at all. I used all sort of tactics, some of them I won’t even share. I was helping fix new cache listings and never hunting them.

As many have elluded to on many posts and threads here, there are many types of puzzle caches. For me, Research one’s are top on my list.

This cache seldom speaks of is for me the ultimate research puzzle. I started at ground zero. I have never in my entire life watched nor do I know anything about a western movie. I know nothing about the names of the actors in any of these movies (nor actor names in any movies for that matter). The perfect research subject is one you know nothing about! I even saw one of the movies sitting on the shelf at the video store and will probably rent it and watch it before I make the find…

This is a puzzle cache that is not cryptic. You won’t spend days looking at it each day and thinking about it and nothing comes up. You know exactly what you have to do when you read the description. (by the way, you will think this s|s guy is absolutely nuts if you read the cache page)

Research. Gathering data. Putting it all together. Organizing. So for me, this is “the cache” that’s out there waiting to be found and when I find it I will be smiling. Even if it’s a magnetic keyholder at some dead-end road. (I wouldn’t be surpised if it was)

Will I ask for help? Maybe… but that’s part of the game yet to be decided on this one. Don’t misunderstand Seldom’s post. I do ask for help and I do “phone a friend” on some caches sometimes.

Everyone has time for what they have time for in their lives. I have drastically cut back on my time spent related to geocaching from when I first started. It was a sprint from the starting line and now I am running more of a marathon. Had I kept sprinting, this specific puzzle cache would already be a smiley. And a smiley is very appropriate for when I do find this one.

I already wrote a “novella” related to my opinion on puzzle caches in these forums. However, I will say that as I watch the new one’s come out (especially in the Greenbay area, man is that area exploding with new caches lately!) the variation and creativity continues to grow! Ignoring them simply because they have a ? icon is simply “a crime.” If they are local, read them. Don’t just ignore them… Who know’s maybe the subject will interest you or you will know the solve. If it’s a medical puzzle as zuma elludes too, you might be the perfect cacher to easily solve it and grab that ftf. Or if you are like me and long since forgotten all things about the medical field, you may have to do some Research.

Now where did I put that spreadsheet…

[TyeDyeSkyGuy]

@-cheeto- wrote:

Ignoring them simply because they have a ? icon is simply “a crime.” If they are local, read them. Don’t just ignore them… Who know’s maybe the subject will interest you or you will know the solve.

I couldn’t agree more. To many people I think, pass on puzzles as soon as they are published, without so much as a look.

So many of my puzzles look so complex, but are actually quite simple to solve. My newest, Riddler’s Treasure Chest for instance. It’s a 5 star difficulty because it’s so easy. Nothing to solve, no coords to figure out, no research. The coords are right there for anyone to find. yet most people will still ignore it.

Yes, puzzles can be intimidating, but give them a shot some time.

[ecorangers]

As of this moment, 47 votes have been casted:

18 votes for cachers that love puzzle caches…..

29 votes if you total up all the excuses why cachers don’t “love” them.

Tami

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