Rating the Cache Difficulty

[+BluEyz and Bugsy]

How do you rate your cache's difficulty, with or without the hint? I have some puzzles that would be maybe a 3 for difficulty, but if you use the hint, they drop to a 2 for difficulty. Do I rate the puzzle a 3 or a 2?

 

Also, if a solution is easy to see, but tedious, how do you rank it? I've spent hours solving a puzzle with an easy solution because it just took a long time to decode all of it. Should this one get the same difficulty rating as a simple, quick solution?

 

[+niraD]

1 hour ago, BluEyz and Bugsy said:

How do you rate your cache's difficulty, with or without the hint? I have some puzzles that would be maybe a 3 for difficulty, but if you use the hint, they drop to a 2 for difficulty. Do I rate the puzzle a 3 or a 2?

I've generally rated my caches' difficulty without the hint. So in your example, I would rate it a 3.

 

One of my Favorites was a D5 cache. The CO offered a series of hints, with the disclaimer that each hint would take about 1 star off the cache's difficulty. That makes sense to me.

 

Then again, I don't see difficulty or terrain ratings as "points" to be earned by finders. I see them as a way for the CO to communicate the general nature of the cache experience to potential seekers. From that perspective, I think it makes sense to rate the cache without the hint, without any assistance the CO might offer if he/she is tagging along with the seekers, etc.

 

Quote

Also, if a solution is easy to see, but tedious, how do you rank it? I've spent hours solving a puzzle with an easy solution because it just took a long time to decode all of it. Should this one get the same difficulty rating as a simple, quick solution?

Rating puzzles is difficult, especially when there's an "Aha!" moment involved. However, I would use an estimate of the time required. The descriptions for Ratings for difficulty and terrain (D/T) have changed some, but they still include some references to the time a cache might take to find: "a few minutes" (D1) or "10-15 minutes" (D1.5) or "30 minutes" (D2) or "multiple trips" (D4).

Edited April 15, 2020 by niraD
typo

[+dprovan]

I rate the cache as if the solver had not seen the hint. But at the same time, I try not to give hints that radically change the difficulty, just pointing out an angle the solver might have overlooked.

 

I try to reflect approximately how much time it will take to solve regardless of whether that time's spend crunching numbers, looking up answers, or just scratching heads.

 

But it's not science. In the end you're not really doing much but saying "don't over think this" with a 2 or "don't expect to get the answer right away" with a 4, but everyone's experiences are different, so there's no real way to say how hard it will be for any individual. I have some puzzle caches based on music that I thought would be pretty easy, but I bumped the difficulty when the first few finders talked about how much effort they had to go to to solve because they didn't have the basic musical training I was expecting to be more common.

[+TeamRabbitRun]

59 minutes ago, BluEyz and Bugsy said:

How do you rate your cache's difficulty, with or without the hint? I have some puzzles that would be maybe a 3 for difficulty, but if you use the hint, they drop to a 2 for difficulty. Do I rate the puzzle a 3 or a 2?

 

<...>

 

 

41 minutes ago, niraD said:

I've generally rated my caches' difficulty without the hint. So in your example, I would rate it a 2.

 

<...>

 

niraD - sure you don't have that backwards? The OP said without the hint, they'd be rated a '3'.

[+niraD]

38 minutes ago, TeamRabbitRun said:

niraD - sure you don't have that backwards? The OP said without the hint, they'd be rated a '3'.

Oops. I corrected that.

[+BluEyz and Bugsy]

Thanks you. Your opinions helped me make decisions.

 

[+ecanderson]

One thing I have always appreciated is when the CO states explicitly on the cache page what the puzzle vs. find represents in the way of difficulty vs. the overall star rating for the cache.  That's something else you might consider in your listing.