Categorize mystery caches

[+TeamPintenWippers]

Some mystery caches are quizes, others are jigsaw puzzles and geoart mysteries where you have to do a really simple puzzle with copying a number from one cache to another to get final coordinates.

 

Instead of clicking on every question mark just to find out that you dont like this type would it be nicer to add a letter to the question mark that indicates what type of puzzle this is?

 

So for jigsaw puzzle it would have a J, quizes get a Q, geoarts get a G and field puzzles get an F. After you log them as found it becomes a normal smiley.

What do you think?

[+ecanderson]

From what I've seen so far (643 solved, and none of them of the 'quick and dirty power trail" variety) you'd likely need more than 26 letters to differentiate them all!  It's no different than any other cache selection.  Do you like rock piles?  Many people do not.  Should traditional caches also have letters to define their nature?  "R" for "rock pile"? 

 

Like others, just open them, have a look, and choose what you like.

 

FWIW: Field puzzles, if the cache page is completed properly, will show a puzzle attribute.

[+TmdAndGG]

So you think that It's harder to click on a mystery, and see what you must do to solve it(approx. 1 min) than it is to have a team of people at HQ rewrite their code so you can save 50 seconds of your life(approx. who knows how long?)? I don't see that happening. And besides, there are wayyyy more types of puzzles then the ones you listed. So my final answer: I think It's a bad idea. Just my 2 cents...

[+niraD]

4 hours ago, TeamPintenWippers said:

So for jigsaw puzzle it would have a J, quizes get a Q, geoarts get a G and field puzzles get an F. After you log them as found it becomes a normal smiley.

C for Caesar ciphers, S for substitution cipher, E for Enigma cipher, P for polygram cipher, V for Vigenere cipher, P for Playfair cipher--oops, we already used P for polygram cipher.

 

Not to mention the many, many puzzles that are some sort of hybrid. For example, how would you classify a puzzle where you have to solve a cipher, but the resulting plaintext is not the final coordinates. Rather, something about the way you solved the cipher contains the information to get the final coordinates. And of course, the many multi-stage puzzles where each stage is a different kind of puzzle.

 

For some puzzles, figuring out what the puzzle is is part of the puzzle. Adding some sort of code to tell what kind of puzzle it is would be a spoiler.

 

And so on.

 

4 hours ago, TeamPintenWippers said:

What do you think?

No thank you.

[+cerberus1]

Isn't the whole idea of  creating a "puzzle"  is finding out what type it may be to solve it ?    

Between the other 2/3rds and I, when we think of ciphers/codes, we came up with enough that you're already outta letters...    

Add that to how many puzzle types there may be, and now we'd need codes for the code...   Sheesh...

 

If I was to do another "puzzle/mystery" series, I wouldn't want the code-type advertised just to make it solved easier by others.

 - That's what helpful hints from the CO in email is for...

 

Edited April 11, 2020 by cerberus1
an "a"...

[Keystone]

4 hours ago, niraD said:

C for Caesar ciphers,

 

NO!  C is for challenge caches.

We're gonna need a bigger alphabet.

[+Ragnemalm]

There are IMHO only three significantly different mysteries, 4 if I count those that are not allowed any more:

 

1) A puzzle to solve at home, go oout and find some simple micro to log it. Most time is spent at your desk.

2) Field puzzles. These are sometimes indistinguishable from multis, but generally speaking I would expect a field puzzle with some first stage to find the field puzzle part.

3) Challenges.

4) The now disallowed "go somewhere in this neighborhood and try to find the place that I vaguely hinted about". Disallowed since the GPS usage is vague or even nonexistant.

 

(1) is the most common kind.

(2) are rare, most should be mutis and I wish Groundspeak would make that a rule so they don't get lost among all the ordinary mysteries. OTOH, if I will make more mysteries, I will probably make these since ordinary mysteries are so impopular, judging from the FPs. Does it need some kind of "marker" to distinuish them from ordinary mysteries? I wouldn't mind but like I said they are rare.

(3) are already pretty easy to spot from their names.

(4) are increasingly rare. At least in my area they are so few that they just don't matter.

 

Marking mysteries after what kind of puzzle they are is not reasonable, and I feel that it may serve as an extra hint that the CO might not want.

Edited April 27, 2020 by Ragnemalm

[+CAVinoGal]

On 4/11/2020 at 12:02 PM, niraD said:

For some puzzles, figuring out what the puzzle is is part of the puzzle. Adding some sort of code to tell what kind of puzzle it is would be a spoiler.

Exactly this.  Part of the fun for me is figuring out what kind of puzzle it could be.  It's not that hard to open the page, take a look, and get to work on it or move on if it isn't immediately obvious.  

 

And as others have stated, there are way too many different types of puzzles try and classify.  The ? says it's a mystery, and it should remain that.  If the CO wants to help out with their own spoiler, they can give clues in the description.  That's my 2¢!

[+on4bam]

Looks like another "silver platter" request. It's a mystery, what kind of mystery? Well, that's a mystery too. Why does everything needs to be dumbed down these days?

 

[+barefootjeff]

7 hours ago, Ragnemalm said:

(2) are rare, most should be mutis and I wish Groundspeak would make that a rule so they don't get lost among all the ordinary mysteries. OTOH, if I will make more mysteries, I will probably make these since ordinary mysteries are so impopular, judging from the FPs. Does it need some kind of "marker" to distinuish them from ordinary mysteries? I wouldn't mind but like I said they are rare.

 

I have a field puzzle mystery (GC62WZJ) with six virtual waypoints spread across the region and somewhat cryptic clues in the description of what to look for at each one. It could have been done as a multi except a multi implies an ordering of the waypoints, specifically one of the waypoints has to be at the listed coordinates and hence the first one. Part of the challenge with this cache is for the seeker to figure out for themselves what order to visit the waypoints in and that in turn depends on what direction they're coming from. Whether to do the two water-access waypoints first or last can also depend on the tide. Listing it as a multi would have spoiled that aspect of it.

 

I think it's good that we can still use the "mystery" type as a catch-all for anything that doesn't fit one of the more tightly-defined types.

[+barefootjeff]

8 hours ago, Ragnemalm said:

1) A puzzle to solve at home, go oout and find some simple micro to log it. Most time is spent at your desk.

 

None of my solve-at-home puzzles lead to a simple quick-to-find micro. There'll be a hike, which is likely to take longer than solving the puzzle did, leading to a themed location and/or container (small or regular size) and maybe the story's denouement in the front of the logbook or some themed swag to take as a memento. With some, the puzzle solution leads to a themed physical waypoint which then provides the location of the final. For me, the outdoor adventure part of a puzzle cache is just as important as the puzzle itself.

[+cerberus1]

4 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

None of my solve-at-home puzzles lead to a simple quick-to-find micro. 

 - snip - 

For me, the outdoor adventure part of a puzzle cache is just as important as the puzzle itself.

 

That's rare here, one took us most of the winter to solve, to find a LPC in a parking lot...

A few geoart areas are simple puzzles.  I guess if you cached with a phone, you could solve most in the field.

We do have one that has nice, long hikes in the woods, but their puzzles are ridiculously easy (this dyslexic old fart's solving them...  ;-), and seems to be meant mostly to keep the "weekend n done" kids away.    

[+barefootjeff]

1 hour ago, cerberus1 said:

 

That's rare here, one took us most of the winter to solve, to find a LPC in a parking lot...

A few geoart areas are simple puzzles.  I guess if you cached with a phone, you could solve most in the field.

We do have one that has nice, long hikes in the woods, but their puzzles are ridiculously easy (this dyslexic old fart's solving them...  ;-), and seems to be meant mostly to keep the "weekend n done" kids away.    

 

There's a group of puzzle cache aficionados in northern Sydney who've made good use of the rugged bushland along the Hawkesbury River and its tributaries for their cache locations, and they've set a pretty high benchmark for puzzles around here. Of the 179 Mystery caches I've found, only 36 were micros and many of those were geoart caches from the 2018 OzGeomuster mega. 60 of those 179 are terrain 3 or higher.

[+me N u]

On 11 April 2020 at 3:49 PM, TeamPintenWippers said:

So for jigsaw puzzle it would have a J, quizes get a Q, geoarts get a G and field puzzles get an F. After you log them as found it becomes a normal smiley.

What do you think?

 

How would your suggestion work for puzzles not written in english or even in a differnt alphabet - arabic or cyrillic for example?

[+MNTA]

So as previously recommended I open them up and check.

 

My categories are:

1)  Challenges (Love them)

      a) Qualify or feasible to a crazy mortal.

      b) No thank you, ex not going to be caching on five different continents any time soon, ignore

2) Puzzles - nice entertaining might take a few attempts, logic puzzles, ciphers, the list is endless

3) I have no clue where to even start - These just go on my ignore list. List of numbers, programming languages I don't know.

 

I have a long ignore list . You can't find them all.

 

[+coachstahly]

On 4/27/2020 at 6:20 PM, barefootjeff said:

 

I have a field puzzle mystery (GC62WZJ) with six virtual waypoints spread across the region and somewhat cryptic clues in the description of what to look for at each one. It could have been done as a multi except a multi implies an ordering of the waypoints, specifically one of the waypoints has to be at the listed coordinates and hence the first one. Part of the challenge with this cache is for the seeker to figure out for themselves what order to visit the waypoints in and that in turn depends on what direction they're coming from. Whether to do the two water-access waypoints first or last can also depend on the tide. Listing it as a multi would have spoiled that aspect of it.

 

I think it's good that we can still use the "mystery" type as a catch-all for anything that doesn't fit one of the more tightly-defined types.

 

I have one of those as well but done differently than yours.  I like it when puzzles aren't always this or always that.  Variety is one of the things that keeps me caching.

 

https://coord.info/GC5KJBG

[+Isonzo Karst]

Categories:

1. Puzzles
   1. solvable by me, or at least I believe I see the way in
   2. What??? ;-)
2. Challenges
   1. Interesting to me, even if I'm probably not ever going to sign the log - stuff I work on
   2.  Not interesting to me
3. Field Puzzles 
   1. Hard to know until you're there, then maybe.... maybe not
   2.  Yep, done it

There's no way to really filter for  the sub-categories, but there' is an attribute for Field Puzzle, and most challenges have "Challenge" in the title.  In other words, base filtering is available now.

 

Edited to add bonus caches as Mystery cache category  - caches which can be found only after getting info from other caches - which are now rare in my area, but do exist.  They may be the one unfilterable, unless they're using the standard language of the type in their area (near me it's bonus).  Funny, the "bonus" cache that comes to mind near me dates from 2006, and has Challenge in the title, not Bonus; confusing...

Edited April 29, 2020 by Isonzo Karst

[+IceColdUK]

I use GSAK, and have a user-defined column, Mystery Type, to help me manage Mystery caches.  I set the following values:

• Puzzle - for puzzles that need to be solved from home.
• Challenge - for challenges that require qualification.
• Bonus  - where you need to find other caches in a series to get the coords.
• Night - for caches that are designed to be found at night.
• Multi - essentially multi-caches, with no homework required.
• Other - still need a catch-all for field puzzles, observation puzzles, etc., etc.

It's definitely not perfect though.  Some solve-at-home puzzles also have field puzzles.  You used to be able to include puzzle elements in challenges.  Bonuses might also be puzzling.  And so on...

 

On 4/11/2020 at 3:49 PM, TeamPintenWippers said:

So for jigsaw puzzle it would have a J, quizes get a Q, geoarts get a G and field puzzles get an F. After you log them as found it becomes a normal smiley.

What do you think?

 

As for breaking down the category even further?  No thanks.  I have a puzzle that includes a jigsaw, but that's only one stage.  Field puzzles already have an attribute.  Geoart tells you nothing about the type of Mystery other than it's posted coords might look nice on the map.

 

I would like to see Challenges given their own type, but that's already been discussed long and hard...