Jump to content

Wheel of Challenges

Max and 99

By Max and 99
in General geocaching topics

Followers 14

Recommended Posts

barefootjeff

+barefootjeff

Posted
Posted

Following on from my post in this thread in early August, here's an update on the numbers from Project GC giving the souvenirs issued for each of the challenges thus far:

 

                                              Easy                Medium                 Hard

April (Smileys)                 191852               121587                22573

May (Favourite Fan)       146481                    -                        34218

June (Out & About)          67194                  32303                17351

July (Streak Star)           140395                  29693                13088

August (Iconic Cacher)   22239                      -                      15173

September (Teamwork)  27771                      -                        4574

 

Interesting that, although the August challenge seems to have had the least participation (and perhaps the least interest), almost 70% of those who completed the Easy level went on to find the other 5 icons to get the Hard level. This month's challenge will likely score highly just from people's day to day caching, whether they're going for the souvenirs or not.

 

 

Link to comment
Hügh

+Hügh

Posted
Posted

If you'll allow, another column -- the (minimum*) number of distinct players that ran the PGC checker:

 

7 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

                                              Easy                Medium                 Hard        |

April (Smileys)                 191852               121587                22573      |   4625

May (Favourite Fan)       146481                    -                        34218      |   (no checker)

June (Out & About)          67194                  32303                17351       |   4400

July (Streak Star)           140395                  29693                13088       |   4052

August (Iconic Cacher)   22239                      -                      15173       |   3831

September (Teamwork)  27771                      -                        4574       |   (no checker)

 

(*minimum: Project-GC gives the number of successful attempts, and also the number of unsuccessful attempts. Each player can only count against each counter once. So the number I give is min(pass, fail); a lower bound for the number of distinct players who used the checker. The true number is likely higher.)

 

Not sure if any Lackeys are still following, but to my eye that looks like a fairly large number of players using an (if I may: third-party, not-sponsored, not-well-advertised) tracking mechanism. I know that you already know that we want this (0:12:55.6); but maybe these numbers will bring it up the priority list.

  • Upvote 3
Link to comment
Team Canary

+Team Canary

Posted
Posted
15 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

Following on from my post in this thread in early August, here's an update on the numbers from Project GC giving the souvenirs issued for each of the challenges thus far:

 

                                              Easy                Medium                 Hard

April (Smileys)                 191852               121587                22573

May (Favourite Fan)       146481                    -                        34218

June (Out & About)          67194                  32303                17351

July (Streak Star)           140395                  29693                13088

August (Iconic Cacher)   22239                      -                      15173

September (Teamwork)  27771                      -                        4574

 

Interesting that, although the August challenge seems to have had the least participation (and perhaps the least interest), almost 70% of those who completed the Easy level went on to find the other 5 icons to get the Hard level. This month's challenge will likely score highly just from people's day to day caching, whether they're going for the souvenirs or not.

 

 

 

August the lowest? 

 

All you needed was a Traditional, an Event and an AL!?!

 

Which was the problem, surely not the Traditional. So the Event, were there none in the area? Or the AL, is there a silent majority who ignore them, like I do?

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
MNTA

+MNTA

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Team Canary said:

 

August the lowest? 

 

All you needed was a Traditional, an Event and an AL!?!

 

Which was the problem, surely not the Traditional. So the Event, were there none in the area? Or the AL, is there a silent majority who ignore them, like I do?

Some of us choose to not do Events. Also I skip wherigos. So did not achieve the souvenir.  Unfortunately this month I'm moving two kids into college next week and moving myself so managed the easy going to skip the hard one and I'm ok with that.

Link to comment
Max and 99

+Max and 99

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)
17 minutes ago, BirdSearcher said:

I don’t see a leaderboard icon on my profile on the app..

Me neither and I've been checking for app updates for 24 hours (9.35.1 latest version, last update Aug. 30). I messaged HQ yesterday and have not yet received a response.

I really expected an official announcement.

Edited by Max and 99
Link to comment
Neos2

Neos2

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, Max and 99 said:

Yeah, so where is it on the app?


Oooh, things are changing as I type almost.

I just opened my app again and have a Wheel of Challenge page when I go to my profile page. That tells me how many souvenirs I have earned so far, among other things (milestones, stats)

In the top right corner of the profile page is a symbol that looks like two peoples heads and shoulders. It's just to the left of the settings button on my unit. That used to show me my friends list and how many points each of us had this month toward the challenge (a half an hour ago). Now that just shows me my friends and lets me short cut to contact them. 

Link to comment
Max and 99

+Max and 99

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Neos2 said:

That used to show me my friends list and how many points each of us had this month toward the challenge (a half an hour ago).

Interesting as I've been checking for the last 24 hours and have only seen a list of friends. Are you sure you weren't looking on the website? 

I wish HQ would respond:

a. We spoke too soon and the icon is not yet on the app. 

or

b. You're all blind. It's right on the app where we said it was.

Edited by Max and 99
  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Max and 99

+Max and 99

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)
5 hours ago, Neos2 said:

I just opened my app again and have a Wheel of Challenge page when I go to my profile page. That tells me how many souvenirs I have earned so far, among other things (milestones, stats)

The wheel banner has been there since March.

Milestones and Statistics, etc. since May of 2022.

I find it odd that the leaderboard is being added to the app just as this long wheel promo ends. 

But I cannot figure out why HQ has not responded to the issue.

Where is the leaderboard in the app?

Edited by Max and 99
  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Rock Chalk

Rock Chalk

Posted
Posted
19 hours ago, Max and 99 said:

Interesting as I've been checking for the last 24 hours and have only seen a list of friends. Are you sure you weren't looking on the website? 

I wish HQ would respond:

a. We spoke too soon and the icon is not yet on the app. 

or

b. You're all blind. It's right on the app where we said it was.

 

It was an error in the blog to state that the leaderboard was in the app. Sometimes the leaderboard is in the app if there is a special leaderboard promotion, and the blog author thought that was the case here. The blog is being corrected now. 

 

To give some context, we generally aren't able to follow all forum threads to seek out questions like yours. I looked up your email to HQ and you didn't actually ask a question, nor did you mention that the blog had indicated that the leaderboard was visible in the app. Instead, you expressed surprise that an announcement about the leaderboard had not been made. Since there was no question asked, I don't think the Lackey who saw your ticket could have known to look into the blog issue.

  • Upvote 1
  • Surprised 1
  • Helpful 1
  • Love 2
Link to comment
barefootjeff

+barefootjeff

Posted
Posted

A couple of weeks in and I'm halfway there with 500 points, although I'm struggling to see how those points have anything much to do with the Teamwork theme. 50 came from finding a 12-year-old inner-city multi (a mint tin though surprisingly not rusty) with 23 FPs from 650 finds, 150 points came from 6 other finds on mostly new caches that haven't had time to accumulate many FPs, and the remaining 300 points were from finders giving FPs to my hides.

 

However, I expect a more teamwork-oriented caching weekend coming up should get me over the line for the Hard souvenir, with an event I'm attending on Saturday and a group kayaking venture on Sunday targeting a bunch of caches along a stretch of river in southern Sydney.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
elrojo14

+elrojo14

Posted
Posted
On 9/11/2023 at 3:19 AM, barefootjeff said:

Following on from my post in this thread in early August, here's an update on the numbers from Project GC giving the souvenirs issued for each of the challenges thus far:

 

                                              Easy                Medium                 Hard

April (Smileys)                 191852               121587                22573

May (Favourite Fan)       146481                    -                        34218

June (Out & About)          67194                  32303                17351

July (Streak Star)           140395                  29693                13088

August (Iconic Cacher)   22239                      -                      15173

September (Teamwork)  27771                      -                        4574

 

Interesting that, although the August challenge seems to have had the least participation (and perhaps the least interest), almost 70% of those who completed the Easy level went on to find the other 5 icons to get the Hard level. This month's challenge will likely score highly just from people's day to day caching, whether they're going for the souvenirs or not.

 

 

 

I am looking forward to seeing the final stats next month. It is very interesting that so few received June easy. Streaks are tough so the low numbers for July make sense. August completely puzzles me except to fully understand people do not like events and/or ALs. 

Link to comment
DreamMachine74

+DreamMachine74

Posted
Posted
5 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

A couple of weeks in and I'm halfway there with 500 points, although I'm struggling to see how those points have anything much to do with the Teamwork theme. 50 came from finding a 12-year-old inner-city multi (a mint tin though surprisingly not rusty) with 23 FPs from 650 finds, 150 points came from 6 other finds on mostly new caches that haven't had time to accumulate many FPs, and the remaining 300 points were from finders giving FPs to my hides.

 

However, I expect a more teamwork-oriented caching weekend coming up should get me over the line for the Hard souvenir, with an event I'm attending on Saturday and a group kayaking venture on Sunday targeting a bunch of caches along a stretch of river in southern Sydney.

Nice work! I've had to go on a few caching trips to get closer to completing this. I'm going out for a few caches today, but don't expect to get many. I think I'll earn the last souvenir on the 1st of October, as there's a CITO happening in a place I very rarely geocache in, and some older/more well loved caches are there.

Link to comment
barefootjeff

+barefootjeff

Posted
Posted (edited)
8 hours ago, elrojo14 said:

It is very interesting that so few received June easy.

 

The June easy required finding caches on 5 days during the 28 days of the challenge. For anyone in full-time work who can only go caching at weekends, that could have been tough, especially if kids sports, other family commitments or even just the weather prevented caching on some of those weekend days. Even for me being retired, I was still only able to get out caching on 6 days during that challenge as, unless a new cache is published locally, pretty much all my caching these days is long trips away.

Edited by barefootjeff
Link to comment
CCFwasG

+CCFwasG

Posted
Posted
On 8/31/2023 at 2:33 PM, Max and 99 said:

On a glance of your finds I do not see an earth cache listed. No one can see your adventure lab finds so that's one you may want to double check on also.


Although I would be happy to be friends here, @Max and 99 :) my privacy settings shouldn't be showing you my find types I think? (screenshot attached). But if anyone else wants to test my privacy stuff, I'd love to know if the settings are not working! 

Weirdly it turned out I had done a write note for the earthcache and not posted a find, so that's fixed and I got the souvenir. i.e. User Error on my part :unsure:

 

privacy settings 091823.jpg

Link to comment
Max and 99

+Max and 99

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)
52 minutes ago, CCFwasG said:

But if anyone else wants to test my privacy stuff, I'd love to know if the settings are not working! 

It doesn't work as well as you think it does. That's how I could tell your Earth Cache log was missing. It takes about 10 seconds to look up your latest finds. Sorry to disappoint you. I really am.

Edited by Max and 99
  • Helpful 1
Link to comment
Deepdiggingmole

+Deepdiggingmole

Posted
Posted
19 hours ago, Harry Dolphin said:

I've been taking some long day trips to find caches with ten or more favorite points.  Not having the best of luck.  Oh, well.  But I have gotten four favorites on my Webcam cache!

I have two trails of hand made and quirky / sneaky caches as well as a webcam cache - between them they have got me 1400 pts on the latest wheel of challenge - happy with that :-)

  • Upvote 2
  • Surprised 1
Link to comment
JL_HSTRE

+JL_HSTRE

Posted
Posted

I filled out the survey for Wheel of Challenges, but I was disappointed there was not really a place to leave comments in the survey. I guess Groundspeak just wanted to crunch some numbers rather than actually read through more open-ended feedback.

 

My thoughts:

 

1. I'm glad this covered several months instead of just August. I logged zero Finds during the months of June, July, and August because this has been a very hot, very rainy summer here in Florida and I had no desire to be outdoors. My drought was bookended by vacations in May and September. YMMV in more northerly latitudes.

 

2. I want one souvenir per challenge, equivalent to the highest level achieved, rather than a separate souvenir for each level achieved.

 

3. Streak souvenirs should never happen because streaks encourage fraudulent logging activity.

 

4. I particularly liked the souvenir challenge that encouraged non-Traditional caches because that encourages cachers to broaden what they seek and try things they might not normally try. Especially newbies who are often afraid of anything that isn't a Traditional.

 

5. Souvenir challenges that I would like to see in a future Wheel of Challenges type promotion:

  • reward  finding higher D/T caches. Preferably with a requirement that the cache must have been placed before the challenge was announced to discourage new hides with inflated D/Ts, although Groundspeak may not want to do that because they might see it as temporarily discouraging new cache placement.
  • reward finding caches in new geographic areas. However, since geocaching.com doesn't track geographic stats below the state/province level (rather than the county level like GSAK or Project-GC) that wouldn't be possible. Maybe a partnership with Project-GC could make it happen? Florida has some Challenge Caches - dating back to when Challenge Caches were rare and kind of a big deal - that require finding a cache in every county. A decade ago when I was new to caching they really encouraged me to see more of my state, which in turn helped encourage me to take the scenic route when traveling whenever possible. That's really something I think geocaching should try to encourage: geocaching taking you to new places.
  • Upvote 4
  • Helpful 2
Link to comment
MartyBartfast

+MartyBartfast

Posted
Posted

I too did the survey and I thought it was poorly constructed and I'm not sure how you can derive much useful and accurate information from it.
Given that there were 6 quite different challenges questions such as:
 

  • How would you rate the level of difficulty of Wheel of Challenges? 
  • About how long did it usually take you to earn the easy souvenir for each challenge?

would vary greatly between some of the challenges and it's not something that an be averaged across the 6 challenges.
I too would have appreciated a free form box where I could have made some pertinent comments for things not covered by the multiple choice questions.

  • Upvote 2
  • Helpful 5
Link to comment
Hynz

+Hynz

Posted
Posted
11 hours ago, MartyBartfast said:

I too would have appreciated a free form box

When selecting Yes or No in the first question you get later to a free from box (for another question) "What made you choose this answer?"

Only by selecting "I don't know (if I participated)" you land on the last page of the survey without a free form box.

  • Helpful 1
Link to comment
MartyBartfast

+MartyBartfast

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Hynz said:

When selecting Yes or No in the first question you get later to a free from box (for another question) "What made you choose this answer?"

I got that, but that was specifically in relation to that answer, I don't really think that was the right place to bring up:

  • Doing 2 challenges that were both effectively streaks was very poor.
  • There should have only 1 souvenir awarded coloured based on the achievement, rather than getting 2 or 3.
  • The different icon challenge should have been ANY combination of icons, not specified icons.
  • etc....

    It would have been good to have a final free form box for anything else we want to say.
  • Upvote 7
  • Helpful 1
  • Love 1
Link to comment
barefootguru

+barefootguru

Posted
Posted

It was a poor survey for gathering general feedback and will miss issues.

  • Including the first streak was terrible, it turned the challenge into a chore, and racked up the driving for longtime cachers
  • Then there was a second streak!
  • Despite massive condemnation on the blog, there was no offical acknowledgement, just a survey designed to not pick up the concerns.
  • The multi-month aspect turned the game into something else in life to keep track of
  • Poor form to have a challenge with no (GS) way to track progress
  • GS still can’t grasp time zones

My ideal is a challenge where I can go on a road trip or two, targeting particular caches — e.g. types, D/T

  • Upvote 1
  • Helpful 1
  • Love 1
Link to comment
GeoElmo6000

+GeoElmo6000

Posted
Posted
On 9/29/2023 at 5:44 PM, Harry Dolphin said:

Poor survey.  I gave up on it.  I didn't see anywhere to complain on a challenge requiring an AL.  I cannot do ALs on my GPSr.  Insulting requirement.

 

I offered to let you use my smartphone to get this souvenir.   I hosted an event that you could have attended since you've attended my events before, and the town the event was in had five lab caches that are super easy.

 

I don't do lab caches but I do have the app and an alt account for finding lab caches that are connected to bonus caches, just so I can get the final coords for the mystery cache which I find on my main account.

  • Upvote 2
  • Love 2
Link to comment
barefootjeff

+barefootjeff

Posted
Posted

Apart from any late loggers, these should be close to the final souvenir numbers from Project GC:

 

                                              Easy                Medium                 Hard

April (Smileys)                 191814               121539                22556

May (Favourite Fan)       146460                    -                        34201

June (Out & About)          67468                  32305                17354

July (Streak Star)           146415                  29767                13114

August (Iconic Cacher)   23901                      -                      16180

September (Teamwork)  88002                      -                      27878

 

I'm a bit surprised the Easy number for September isn't higher as it only required finding at most four caches, or even not finding any but just having two people give FPs to your hides, but maybe it's because ALs weren't included.

Link to comment
Goldenwattle

+Goldenwattle

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

Apart from any late loggers, these should be close to the final souvenir numbers from Project GC:

 

                                              Easy                Medium                 Hard

April (Smileys)                 191814               121539                22556

May (Favourite Fan)       146460                    -                        34201

June (Out & About)          67468                  32305                17354

July (Streak Star)           146415                  29767                13114

August (Iconic Cacher)   23901                      -                      16180

September (Teamwork)  88002                      -                      27878

 

I'm a bit surprised the Easy number for September isn't higher as it only required finding at most four caches, or even not finding any but just having two people give FPs to your hides, but maybe it's because ALs weren't included.

I went and checked out of interest. I wasn't interested in the souvenirs and didn't try to get them, but some appeared anyway. Many I didn't get, but the strangest one was that I got the May Easy and Hard ones, but no Medium. I don't know how this worked, because I wasn't trying for them, but if I had earned a 'Hard' one, I would have thought I would also have earned the 'Medium' one. Just a comment, as I don't really care I didn't get the Medium one, or any of them.

Link to comment
Harry Dolphin

+Harry Dolphin

Posted
Posted
7 hours ago, GeoElmo6000 said:

 

I offered to let you use my smartphone to get this souvenir.   I hosted an event that you could have attended since you've attended my events before, and the town the event was in had five lab caches that are super easy.

 

I don't do lab caches but I do have the app and an alt account for finding lab caches that are connected to bonus caches, just so I can get the final coords for the mystery cache which I find on my main account.

 

Thanks, but it was a night time event.  I don't drive at night.

Link to comment
GeoElmo6000

+GeoElmo6000

Posted
Posted
10 hours ago, Harry Dolphin said:

 

Thanks, but it was a night time event.  I don't drive at night.

 

Okay I didn't realize that.  But next time, just pop a request into the NNJC group and I'm sure someone will be happy to meet you at a cache location with their smartphone to help you find an adventure lab if it'll help you get a souvenir.

  • Helpful 1
Link to comment
elrojo14

+elrojo14

Posted
Posted
On 10/2/2023 at 1:16 PM, barefootjeff said:

Apart from any late loggers, these should be close to the final souvenir numbers from Project GC:

 

                                              Easy                Medium                 Hard

April (Smileys)                 191814               121539                22556

May (Favourite Fan)       146460                    -                        34201

June (Out & About)          67468                  32305                17354

July (Streak Star)           146415                  29767                13114

August (Iconic Cacher)   23901                      -                      16180

September (Teamwork)  88002                      -                      27878

 

I'm a bit surprised the Easy number for September isn't higher as it only required finding at most four caches, or even not finding any but just having two people give FPs to your hides, but maybe it's because ALs weren't included.

Yes it appears that Adventure Labbing gives easy FP. It was so strange it was not included in September. I still am intrigued that August had such a low count all together. Although should we surprised that maybe a lot of people's areas were cached out and apparently people do not like to travel to cache much. Well at least some people! 

  • Funny 1
  • Surprised 1
Link to comment
Team OPJim

+Team OPJim

Posted
Posted

I agree that the survey wasn't particularly helpful.  

 

My take is that I really liked those Wheel of Challenges that emphasized

  1. finding creative caches: ie with more than 10 favorite points,
  2. special cache types, like letterboxes or multicaches
  3. Adventures labs

What I didn't like were:

  1. emphasis on numbers, finding many random caches
  2. emphasis on number of days caches.  I live in a rural area, and work full time, which precludes finding that daily cache which I would have in an urban area.  
  • Upvote 2
Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
Followers 14
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...