Would it be fun/wrong/against a rule/other....

[Clan Riffster]

Personally, I think it's all part of the game.

Yes, it's all part of the game. Personally, being intentionally misled into going to the wrong location annoys me, that's all I'm saying. Clan Riffster can still do it if he wants, assuming he's not worried about annoying me.

I'm not sure I grok this the same way you do. Assume, for argument's sake, I pull this off. You pull up the cache page and immediately see a solution method. For whatever reason, you opt to ignore the 3 difficulty rating. Whilst I would agree that you were being misled, I would argue that you were the one oing the misleading, and I would suggest that your self deception was accidental, rather than intentional.

 

The clues will be present for anyone willing to pay attention.

 

The only way that the D3 would be relevant to me is if I am familiar with your other puzzles. I've made it clear that I am not a fan of puzzle caches, but I do look at each one that gets published in my area. I have solved a D4 is less than a minute while the local puzzle masters struggled. I have also stared for hours at a D1.5 and can't figure it out.

As a seasoned geocacher, I would expect you to understand the D/T rating system, and what each digit represents. I would also expect you to understand that there is a degree of ambiguity to the system,. Because it is an imperfect system, a puzzle which would be considered somewhat challenging to Hawking probably shouldn't be rated a D2. There needs to be balance. If a puzzle cache has a D3 or above rating, and you solve it in an eye blink, either you are a genius, you got lucky, or your solution may need more work. If you are not a genius, and you solve a D3 puzzle very quickly, I figure the onus is on you to check for other possibilities.

 

To address your earlier concern, my thought was to include a physical hint n the red herring which would aid seekers in solving the puzzle correctly.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Personally, I think it's all part of the game.

Yes, it's all part of the game. Personally, being intentionally misled into going to the wrong location annoys me, that's all I'm saying. Clan Riffster can still do it if he wants, assuming he's not worried about annoying me.

I'm not sure I grok this the same way you do. Assume, for argument's sake, I pull this off. You pull up the cache page and immediately see a solution method. For whatever reason, you opt to ignore the 3 difficulty rating. Whilst I would agree that you were being misled, I would argue that you were the one oing the misleading, and I would suggest that your self deception was accidental, rather than intentional.

 

The clues will be present for anyone willing to pay attention.

 

Found It

Solved the puzzle easily. Went to search for the cache at the coordinates and couldn't find it so I left a log sheet in a baggie for the next person to find.

 

I did an elaborate puzzle cache that had lots of red herrings, some of them extremely elaborate. After working through several levels I get a set of coordinates, but there was also a clue which suggested that there was offset involved. The fact that the set of coordinates pointed to the 50 yard line in the stadium of a NFL team was a pretty good clue as well.

 

 

[+dprovan]

I'm not sure I grok this the same way you do. Assume, for argument's sake, I pull this off. You pull up the cache page and immediately see a solution method. For whatever reason, you opt to ignore the 3 difficulty rating. Whilst I would agree that you were being misled, I would argue that you were the one oing the misleading, and I would suggest that your self deception was accidental, rather than intentional.

How would I know that the 3 difficulty rating applied to the puzzle and not the hide?

 

The clues will be present for anyone willing to pay attention.

Obviously I have no idea what those clues are since you haven't published the cache, so I can only address the general issue of a puzzle having two valid solutions, one of which is wrong.

[Clan Riffster]

Obviously I have no idea what those clues are since you haven't published the cache, so I can only address the general issue of a puzzle having two valid solutions, one of which is wrong.

As mentioned earlier, the clues would be the difficulty and terrain rating. I suppose I could dumb it down for the few entitlement junkies which seem to inhabit every caching region. Maybe add a hint to the effect of, "The obvious solution is a red herring." One minor correction: there will not be two valid solutions present on the cache page. There will be one fairly challenging solution, which will lead to the final, and one easy peasy red herring solution.

[+dprovan]

As mentioned earlier, the clues would be the difficulty and terrain rating.

And as I mentioned, I would have no idea whether the hide deserved the difficulty rating all on its own. And until I get there, I might have no idea whether there's an unforeseen issue that warrants a surprisingly high terrain rating. The opposite -- for example, a low terrain rating when my answer ends up in the middle of a lake and looks like a T5 -- is a little more reasonable, but even then under the right conditions I might think the lake will turn out to be easy to wade out into the lake or something.

 

I suppose I could dumb it down for the few entitlement junkies which seem to inhabit every caching region. Maybe add a hint to the effect of, "The obvious solution is a red herring." One minor correction: there will not be two valid solutions present on the cache page. There will be one fairly challenging solution, which will lead to the final, and one easy peasy red herring solution.

Well, you have my input. I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, I'm just telling you why I wouldn't like it. But if the red herring is so blindingly obvious, what's the point? The answer, of course, is to play a trick on people that don't realize that the blindingly obvious solution is too blindingly obvious. I don't like having tricks played on me, so if I failed the test, I'd be annoyed.

 

If you put a geochecker on it, I'll discover my answer's no good, so I know not to bother looking. Would that spoil your fun? If so, I can only imagine that the reason you're doing that is so you can laugh at people that go to the wrong location. What fun! Except for those people. I've never liked practical jokes, but I guess you do.

[+TeamSeekAndWeShallFind]

I think I have managed to create a somewhat tricky cache to find, but I wanted to make it a little "different".

Would it be daft/silly to put "decoy" caches in the "most likely" places for a cache, and in/on those caches put fun messages "close, but keep looking", or "Did you really think we would make it this easy" etc etc - the actual location is going to be, I hope, somewhat unique!

 

Would you be irritated or amused?

 

Any thoughts appreciated/welcome/

 

Cheers

 

J

What is the difference between a decoy(s) and a throwdown? In other words, a phoney cache(s) placed by the CO at or near GZ or by someone else who can't find the intended cache? No difference. Both are bad and neither should be allowed. If the guidelines state there should only be 1 cache per 528', then that's what it should be.

[+niraD]

What is the difference between a decoy(s) and a throwdown? In other words, a phoney cache(s) placed by the CO at or near GZ or by someone else who can't find the intended cache? No difference.

That sounds like quite a difference to me. One is placed intentionally by the CO as part of the intended geocaching experience. The other is placed by a seeker in lieu of logging a DNF, without permission, and not part of the intended geocaching experience.

 

Both are bad and neither should be allowed. If the guidelines state there should only be 1 cache per 528', then that's what it should be.

The guidelines do not limit caches to only one stage/waypoint/container/whatever. Think of decoys as completely optional stages of a multi-stage cache. Some seekers will ignore them completely. Others will find them all.

[Clan Riffster]

I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, I'm just telling you why I wouldn't like it.

Thanx for the input. If you find yourself in Central Florida, shoot me an email.

I'll send you the GC number so you can avoid it.

 

What is the difference between a decoy(s) and a throwdown?

Is that a trick question? What's the difference between an elephant and a Toyota Camry? Just because they both have trunks, require maintenance and are used by some as a means of transportation, does not make them equal. A decoy is an item left intentionally by the cache owner, for a variety of purposes. The other is an unauthorized replacement cache, typically the crappiest container imaginable, placed so some numbers entitled cacher doesn't have to accept the DNF they earned.

 

If the guidelines state there should only be 1 cache per 528', then that's what it should be.

A decoy is not a cache. Ergo, that guideline does not apply.

[+Lonemorf]

Oh my - the can of worms I have opened.

FWIW, I think I am just going to go with an incredibly well hidden cache, and save the potential politics and problems.

[+niraD]

Is that a trick question? What's the difference between an elephant and a Toyota Camry? Just because they both have trunks, require maintenance and are used by some as a means of transportation, does not make them equal.

Thank you. That quote made this visit to the forums worthwhile.

[+baloo&bd]

Oh my - the can of worms I have opened.

FWIW, I think I am just going to go with an incredibly well hidden cache, and save the potential politics and problems.

 

While this is of course your decision to make, don't dismiss because of a few shortsighted comments in the forums. There are several caches around our caching areas with decoys and they have proven very popular. One was hidden behind a grocery store and would have been a very mundane guardrail cache if not for the fact that because of nearby structures the GPSr jumped a bit and the CO had place 10 or 12 containers at each support and then some.

 

Very few walk away from decoy type caches without a smile.