Heck yes it deters new members from even wanting to keep trying. I have only been doing this for 3 months and I have a few caches under my belt. But when ya have kids out with you and you look for 30min for a cache that should only take 5-10 and no hints available. That makes for a tough day and would discourage even me. The game is to be fun and most of these caches the owners never come back to even check them even after 2 months of nobody finding the cache. I know 5/5 caches are actually going to be hard but a 2/2 shouldn't be.