Geocaching Frustration, is it just me?

[+Mar103nerd]

I first started Geocaching 2008 and remain fairly active by finding new caches closer to home mostly. Life had other plans and I got away from finding new caches for several years. As of this past August, I began caching again. I started from scratch, new user name (I lost access to my old account). That also meant I lost credit for my previous finds, stats, etc. Many of my previous finds have been achieved for quiet sometime, but some still remain and I have been trying to find them once again.

 

Since rejoining, I have noticed some changes from how I remembered geocaching in the past. A major change has been the lack of caches available without having a premium account, which I can understand. People put a lot of hard work and effort into making great caches only to have them be muggled or damaged. It seems like there used to just be more geocaches in place overall in comparison. 

 

The biggest frustration I have personally had in particular has been the lack of Cache Owner Maintenance and Geocache Health Score. I have noticed is the lack of effort, poor communication and lack of response when you message CO's should you have a question. It has been discouraging to also drive somewhere to find a cache in not accessible.

Examples which have happened resulting in a DNF:
1. Public Park with playground/baseball field - After walking the entire perimeter,  ALL points of entry were padlocked during the weekday (not after sundown). No notation or information about park closure posted, no CO response. 
2. Logged a find, but described the issue in description and sent photo to CO, no resolution as of yet. The D/T was 1/5/1.5 (Attributes: Dog friendly and Parking), what was left of container was in a wooded area that was uneven, rocky, no clear path, a lot of over growth and brush and it was not in an obvious location with garbage everywhere. Honestly, it was disgusting. 

3. There have been a few times that the GZ was actively a construction site,  had locked gates or  "no trespassing" signs. Another was due to an access road being locked with private property signage. The access road was the only way to get to a trail/GZ. 

4. I have tried sending photos as proof caches are gone/missing, CO do not follow up even when logging CO needs to perform maintenance. 

5. There seems to be a lot more Puzzle/Mystery Caches. I messaged a CO for clarification about their questions to solve it for the final coordinates and followed up (that was 2+ months ago). I Posted a note to the cache log asking for help as well without response. 
6. When navigating to a cache, the satellite view places you inside of a building. In the logs, another Geocacher stated you have to go through a gate. (D/T is 1.5/1.5)... I'm not sure if people are determining their DT's accurately?

I find myself traveling 1 hour or more from where I live to find quality geocaches since the local caches do not seem like they are being maintained. In the meantime, I have been avoiding specific Cachers due to the state of their existing caches I have/have not found thus far. I just keep adding those "problem caches" to my watchlist hoping for the best in the meantime.

 

Edited November 28 by mar103nerd
Grammar/Spelling

[+MNTA]

I'm fortunate (some may not agree) to live in an area with extremely attentive reviewers so problem caches are quickly taken care of or archived.

 

My suggestion do not be afraid of flagging caches with problems. I truly dislike wasting time searching for a cache that is obviously missing I think you agree.

 

NM logs are now OAR - Owner attention requested

NA logs are now RAR - Reviewer attention requested

 

If a CO does not respond to your OAR log file a RAR. 

 

So if an owner of a Puzzle does not respond to questions is that a cause for OAR/RAR?

[Keystone]

9 hours ago, MNTA said:

I'm fortunate (some may not agree) to live in an area with extremely attentive reviewers so problem caches are quickly taken care of or archived.

 

My suggestion do not be afraid of flagging caches with problems.

 

I see that the OP lives in Northeast Pennsylvania.  I'd like to think that the Pennsylvania Reviewers are also "extremely attentive."  My colleague who covers Eastern PA is one of the best.  Just since Monday morning, he's taken action on 12 caches that had maintenance issues in Eastern PA.  What did those 12 caches have in common?  Geocachers logged enough "Did Not Find" logs and "Owner Attention Requested" logs to trigger a low health score and place those caches into a queue for Reviewer action, or they logged a "Reviewer Attention Requested" log to get the Reviewer's immediate attention.  We are happy to take action, but we need to know about the problems and the logs are the best way to do that.

[+barefootjeff]

15 hours ago, mar103nerd said:

A major change has been the lack of caches available without having a premium account, which I can understand. People put a lot of hard work and effort into making great caches only to have them be muggled or damaged. It seems like there used to just be more geocaches in place overall in comparison. 

 

This varies from place to place. In my own local region, only 23% of the caches are premium-member-only and of my own 57 active hides only 2 are PMO, those being one that got moved from its hiding place to inside a hollow tree some 50 metres away and the other is in a location that could be potentially dangerous for someone (especially kids) just downloading the free app and going to see what's there. But a bit further north in the Newcastle region, there have been several incidents when someone signing up with a free account (and calling themselves the Cache Smasher) went on a rampage destroying every cache they could get their hands on, including some gadget caches the COs had put a lot of effort into building. As a result, a lot of the newer caches there are PMO.

 

16 hours ago, mar103nerd said:

The biggest frustration I have personally had in particular has been the lack of Cache Owner Maintenance and Geocache Health Score. I have noticed is the lack of effort, poor communication and lack of response when you message CO's should you have a question. It has been discouraging to also drive somewhere to find a cache in not accessible.

 

I'm sorry you've been having so many bad experiences. While I don't find large numbers of caches, as this region just doesn't have that many and there are no power trails or geoart around here, most of my experiences are happy ones and just this year alone I've found a good number of pretty awesome hides, such as these:

 

 

I've also found a few that have been, let's just say underwhelming, but thankfully ones like these are few and far between:

 

 

But in between were some 150 or so finds that were pleasant experiences, neither grand nor bad but just nice good fun with interesting locations and clean dry logs.

 

17 hours ago, mar103nerd said:

I find myself traveling 1 hour or more from where I live to find quality geocaches since the local caches do not seem like they are being maintained.

 

Over my almost twelve years in the game, about 37% of my finds are more than 50km from home and in the last few years that's been close to 50%. This region just doesn't have lots of caches and new ones close to home are a rare treat. So far this year I've gone out caching on 77 days, so a bit over once a week on average, and many of those are half or full day ventures either north to the Lake Macquarie and Newcastle regions or south to Sydney, but for me that's a pretty happy medium and I'd probably enjoy it less if I was going out more often. My longest streak is 7 days, done on two occasions to get souvenirs, but by the last day I was glad I didn't have to do any more, particularly when the weather turned bad.

 

My advice would be to take note of the cache owners whose hides you really enjoy and focus on those, while avoiding those whose caches are bad experiences. Aiming for quality more than quantity, even if it involves some longer trips away, might be a good way to go. And, as others have said, on the bad ones make sure to log OAR or, if someone already has and it's been ignored, RAR, so that the really bad ones can be cleaned from the gameboard.

[+The_Jumping_Pig]

17 hours ago, mar103nerd said:

5. There seems to be a lot more Puzzle/Mystery Caches. I messaged a CO for clarification about their questions to solve it for the final coordinates and followed up (that was 2+ months ago). I Posted a note to the cache log asking for help as well without response. 

I like mystery caches. I have a decent bit of puzzle caches hidden. I will gladly give help to anyone who wants assistance in my puzzles, because they are meant to be solved (even if they are sometimes evil). However, some (a minority) of COs won't give out hints. No harm in asking, but it's their puzzles, they can choose to give out hints or not. They also might just be inactive...

17 hours ago, mar103nerd said:

When navigating to a cache, the satellite view places you inside of a building. In the logs, another Geocacher stated you have to go through a gate. (D/T is 1.5/1.5)... I'm not sure if people are determining their DT's accurately?

I wouldn't really assume navigational issues (not bushwacking, but what roads to take, how to get to GZ in that manner) as a reason to increase a cache's D/T. It should state somewhere in the description how to get there, though.

[+barefootjeff]

18 hours ago, mar103nerd said:

(D/T is 1.5/1.5)... I'm not sure if people are determining their DT's accurately?

 

This is something else I meant to mention. Part of this may be due to 1.5/1.5 being the default D/T rating on the cache creation page. I dislike default settings on principle, as often in situations where the default isn't the correct choice, the consequences can be a lot worse than the few seconds saved by not having to click on something or think about a selection. Creating a cache page isn't something that should be rushed anyway, and making people actually choose the D/T rating for their cache instead of just making it 1.5/1.5 if they ignore it would be a good move.

[Keystone]

18 hours ago, mar103nerd said:

A major change has been the lack of caches available without having a premium account, which I can understand.

 

Across all of Pennsylvania, 14.2% of all caches are available to Premium Members only.  Within 50 miles of Scranton, the ratio is 15.1%.  There are plenty of caches to find, and more than there were in 2008.

 

Quote

There seems to be a lot more Puzzle/Mystery Caches.

 

Across all of Pennsylvania, 13.9% of all caches are Mystery Caches.  Within 50 miles of Scranton, the ratio is 13.3%.  By memory, this isn't radically different than in 2008, with the exception of the growth in the popularity of Challenge Caches.  Challenge Caches constitute 7.8% of the total Mystery Caches in Pennsylvania, versus just a handful in 2008.

[+capsai]

On 11/28/2024 at 6:46 AM, mar103nerd said:

The biggest frustration I have personally had in particular has been the lack of Cache Owner Maintenance and Geocache Health Score.

 

My frustation at the moment is the spread of uncreative jigidi caches. Above all, there always have to be more than 400 puzzle pieces. As if the motif becomes more beautiful the more pieces you have to put together. These are absolutely annoying and i wish there would be a kind of saturation rule for them.

 

And also fishing rod caches...

[+The_Jumping_Pig]

1 hour ago, capsai said:

My frustation at the moment is the spread of uncreative jigidi caches.

I'm not a big fan of them either. However, they are very rare where I live, and despite having found hundreds of mystery caches, solved hundreds more, and probably opened thousands, I've only seen around 25 or so in my time geocaching. Must be much more common in europe.

[+JL_HSTRE]

On 11/28/2024 at 12:46 AM, mar103nerd said:

There have been a few times that the GZ was actively a construction site,  had locked gates or  "no trespassing" signs. Another was due to an access road being locked with private property signage. The access road was the only way to get to a trail/GZ. 

 

That's a Needs Archived / Needs Reviewer Attention 100% of the time if the cache is not already Disabled.

[+JL_HSTRE]

Since Keystone posted the stats for PA, I decided, out of curiosity, to check the stats for FL.

 

PA has 39,324 active caches of all kinds compared to 36,362 in FL. Interestingly, PA is 70% the area of FL yet FL has 92% as many caches as PA. Probably due to the large number of wetlands in FL as much as anything.

 

25% of FL caches are PMO - quite a bit more than PA's 14%. I'm not sure why. Having been a PM for over a decade I hadn't noticed this.

81% of FL caches are Traditional. 14% are Mystery (comparable to PA).

 

Anecdotally, when I started in 2010, I would guess FL had maybe 10% Mystery. Besides Challenge caches, FL has a lot of geoart which would not have been allowed during the first decade of geocaching because the physical placements form power trails. Within 2 hours of me there is a 45-mile long stretch of road that is end to end caches, almost all Mystery (geoart plus a long series of Challenges).

FWIW

61% of all FL caches are Basic and Traditional.

33% of all FL caches are Basic and Traditional and D/T 3/3 or less.

[+cerberus1]

On 11/28/2024 at 12:46 AM, mar103nerd said:

I find myself traveling 1 hour or more from where I live to find quality geocaches since the local caches do not seem like they are being maintained. In the meantime, I have been avoiding specific Cachers due to the state of their existing caches I have/have not found thus far. I just keep adding those "problem caches" to my watchlist hoping for the best in the meantime.

Not that far away, looked to see the area JIC I had info on reasons there may be issues (died, ill, divorce...).

 -  But you made your profile private (a popular thing now for some odd reason...).  Luckily a Reviewer was able to offer ideas.  

I go by D/T, and now rarely go after anything less than 2 terrain.  We found deep woods caches fit us best.

Caches available without premium only had a half-point difference than years ago.    More noticeable in the app ... 

Those other than traditional and events are considered "advanced", sometimes called premium (for some odd reason) in the app.

Anyone can still search for and log all caches (other than PMO) by going to the website.  That's the only way I still do it, with a GPSr.

We'll skip by hundreds of caches just to do the ones we'll do.   Often, it's just one, distant cache.

 

[+barefootjeff]

1 hour ago, cerberus1 said:

We'll skip by hundreds of caches just to do the ones we'll do.   Often, it's just one, distant cache.

 

Last Sunday afternoon I went up to Newcastle, an hour and a half's drive each way, to meet up with lee737 and his son Samuel737 and attempt a joint FTF on a new water access cache. We parked in Carrington and paddled upstream to the cache under the road bridge and made a successful find. I've pretty much cached out the area over the years so there weren't many options for doing any others afterwards (perhaps that urban traditional west of the bridge but it was a bit far to walk from where we parked) and it was getting late in the day so I settled on an LBH in bushland near the highway on the way home that I'd been wanting to do for some time.

 

 

Perhaps some would see 2 finds for 3 hours of driving to be a poor outcome, but for me it's about the quality experiences not the quantity and I'd rank it as one of my better caching days.

[+Viajero Perdido]

1 hour ago, barefootjeff said:

Perhaps some would see 2 finds for 3 hours of driving to be a poor outcome, but for me it's about the quality experiences not the quantity and I'd rank it as one of my better caching days.

 

^ This.

 

In a similar vein, I just wrapped up a caching holiday - that was the primary goal - where I managed to average only 1.6 cache finds per day, and spending about an hour airborne per cache.  (I don't want to do the $/cache calculation! )  Willingly.  All right, I'll admit, some great hikes and food also helped make it worthwhile, but it all orbited around just a few specially chosen caches.

 

Point being, if you choose the caches carefully, it can be a lot of fun.

 

One day, one cache:

[+Mar103nerd]

On 11/28/2024 at 6:10 PM, barefootjeff said:

 

This varies from place to place. In my own local region, only 23% of the caches are premium-member-only and of my own 57 active hides only 2 are PMO, those being one that got moved from its hiding place to inside a hollow tree some 50 metres away and the other is in a location that could be potentially dangerous for someone (especially kids) just downloading the free app and going to see what's there. But a bit further north in the Newcastle region, there have been several incidents when someone signing up with a free account (and calling themselves the Cache Smasher) went on a rampage destroying every cache they could get their hands on, including some gadget caches the COs had put a lot of effort into building. As a result, a lot of the newer caches there are PMO.

 

 

I'm sorry you've been having so many bad experiences. While I don't find large numbers of caches, as this region just doesn't have that many and there are no power trails or geoart around here, most of my experiences are happy ones and just this year alone I've found a good number of pretty awesome hides, such as these:

 

 

I've also found a few that have been, let's just say underwhelming, but thankfully ones like these are few and far between:

 

 

But in between were some 150 or so finds that were pleasant experiences, neither grand nor bad but just nice good fun with interesting locations and clean dry logs.

 

 

Over my almost twelve years in the game, about 37% of my finds are more than 50km from home and in the last few years that's been close to 50%. This region just doesn't have lots of caches and new ones close to home are a rare treat. So far this year I've gone out caching on 77 days, so a bit over once a week on average, and many of those are half or full day ventures either north to the Lake Macquarie and Newcastle regions or south to Sydney, but for me that's a pretty happy medium and I'd probably enjoy it less if I was going out more often. My longest streak is 7 days, done on two occasions to get souvenirs, but by the last day I was glad I didn't have to do any more, particularly when the weather turned bad.

 

My advice would be to take note of the cache owners whose hides you really enjoy and focus on those, while avoiding those whose caches are bad experiences. Aiming for quality more than quantity, even if it involves some longer trips away, might be a good way to go. And, as others have said, on the bad ones make sure to log OAR or, if someone already has and it's been ignored, RAR, so that the really bad ones can be cleaned from the gameboard.

Thank you so much for your insightful response! It is very reassuring to hear you have had primarily good experiences as well. I continued with a Premium Membership with my new user account, and I enjoy the feature that you can search for "Most Favorited" Geocaches and from there I have found COs that are very involved and have amazing & very creative Geocaches placed. Hopefully, I will get to know some of them at an upcoming Event.

[+Mar103nerd]

On 11/28/2024 at 11:40 AM, Keystone said:

 

I see that the OP lives in Northeast Pennsylvania.  I'd like to think that the Pennsylvania Reviewers are also "extremely attentive."  My colleague who covers Eastern PA is one of the best.  Just since Monday morning, he's taken action on 12 caches that had maintenance issues in Eastern PA.  What did those 12 caches have in common?  Geocachers logged enough "Did Not Find" logs and "Owner Attention Requested" logs to trigger a low health score and place those caches into a queue for Reviewer action, or they logged a "Reviewer Attention Requested" log to get the Reviewer's immediate attention.  We are happy to take action, but we need to know about the problems and the logs are the best way to do that.

Thank you for additional guidance. I have also noticed that several caches have recently had a reviewer post to the log (prior to checking the forum responses).

When I cannot find a cache, I return to look again. A DNF does not warrant immediate COA or RAR. I also take the time to message CO's and send images with a thorough explanation if there is an issue and give them opportunity to take action. 

For future reference, what is the best course of action if a CO for a Puzzle/Mystery Cache does not respond, and you are unable to solve the puzzle for the final coordinates? 

[+Viajero Perdido]

1 hour ago, mar103nerd said:

For future reference, what is the best course of action if a CO for a Puzzle/Mystery Cache does not respond, and you are unable to solve the puzzle for the final coordinates? 

 

I'm not an authority or anything, but...

1. Stew on it and hope for a 3am eyes-open moment.
2. Move on, find another puzzle or butterfly to chase.
3. Ask a cacher who's solved it.  (Debatable, but done.)

In my experience, most puzzle COs are happy to drop hints if asked.  I am.  That's unless the FTF is still up for grabs, in which case, it'd be unsporting to ask.

 

Edited December 4 by Viajero Perdido

[+MartyBartfast]

6 hours ago, mar103nerd said:

For future reference, what is the best course of action if a CO for a Puzzle/Mystery Cache does not respond, and you are unable to solve the puzzle for the final coordinates? 

In addition to what @Viajero Perdido said above, there are also a number of facebook groups for helping with puzzles, do a search for something like "Geocaching Puzzle help".
The ones I'm talking about will give hints and will nudge you in the right direction, but won't just give you the solution.

[+JL_HSTRE]

On 12/3/2024 at 9:42 PM, mar103nerd said:

For future reference, what is the best course of action if a CO for a Puzzle/Mystery Cache does not respond, and you are unable to solve the puzzle for the final coordinates? 

 

Unless I really need to know the final coords for my own placement (never happened) or I thought I was close to the solution but couldn't quite get all the way there, I don't ask the CO for a tip in the first place. If I can't figure out the solution, I simply skip the cache. You don't have to find them all.

 

[+MNTA]

1 hour ago, JL_HSTRE said:

You don't have to find them all.

 

The word I'd use is "Can't".

 

However, maybe it's time to reign in some excessiveness. Challenge caches received guardrails maybe it's time for some form of change here with Mystery caches. As a huge fan of grandfathered challenge caches I have to admit there are some I'll never qualify for. Likewise my ignore list is going strong with Mystery caches I have no possibility to decipher or inclination either. Improvements are possible and probably needed.

[+JL_HSTRE]

23 hours ago, MNTA said:

However, maybe it's time to reign in some excessiveness. Challenge caches received guardrails maybe it's time for some form of change here with Mystery caches. As a huge fan of grandfathered challenge caches I have to admit there are some I'll never qualify for. Likewise my ignore list is going strong with Mystery caches I have no possibility to decipher or inclination either. Improvements are possible and probably needed.

 

There have been some tightening over the years. Reviewers can, maybe are now supposed to, ask a hider to explain how a puzzle is solved to ensure it doesn't require mind reading.

 

Complex, obscure, and/or multilayered puzzles are nothing new. Usually they seem driven by a local "puzzle-headed weenie" that is a computer programmer, math teacher, code breaking hobbyist, or has a degree in some niche field.

 

A difficult puzzle requires a lot of work to create, especially compared to a Challenge Cache. So it seems somewhat self-limiting.

 

That said, I can see some merit in sunsetting puzzle caches that go unfound for several years, more than other cache types. Traditionals with long periods without being sought are usually a matter of interest relative to difficulty. Sufficiently difficult puzzles may reach a point where literally nobody else is left in the area to solve them.

[+baer2006]

7 hours ago, JL_HSTRE said:

There have been some tightening over the years. Reviewers can, maybe are now supposed to, ask a hider to explain how a puzzle is solved to ensure it doesn't require mind reading.

If this is so, then the reviewers in my area don't follow this recommendation.

 

7 hours ago, JL_HSTRE said:

A difficult puzzle requires a lot of work to create, especially compared to a Challenge Cache. So it seems somewhat self-limiting.

True, an innovative, difficult but solvable puzzle is hard to create. But making a read-my-mind type, and therefore effectively unsolvable, puzzle is super easy.

 

Anyway, at least in my area the "mystery craze" has more or less subsided. Up until around 5 years ago, there were several new puzzle caches per week in my area, but nowadays, most new mystery caches are bonus caches of ALs or traditional trails.

 

7 hours ago, JL_HSTRE said:

That said, I can see some merit in sunsetting puzzle caches that go unfound for several years, more than other cache types.

Usually, such caches are very rare, and can easily be ignored. Except maybe in the home zone of this guy (ca. 90 unfound puzzle caches, all of them more than a year old), where other COs will definitely have saturation guideline problems when trying to place own caches.

[+barefootjeff]

7 hours ago, JL_HSTRE said:

That said, I can see some merit in sunsetting puzzle caches that go unfound for several years, more than other cache types. Traditionals with long periods without being sought are usually a matter of interest relative to difficulty. Sufficiently difficult puzzles may reach a point where literally nobody else is left in the area to solve them.

 

There's a 3.5/3.5 puzzle cache (GCAWEZ6) 10km north of Newcastle (the largest regional city in New South Wales) that was published in August. It's just outside my notification range so it was nearly a month later that I stumbled across the listing and soon had it solved. I was surprised when I drove up there that I got FTF as I was the 9th one to solve it, and even more surprised to see that, three months on, I'm still the only finder and the most recent solver.

 

Amongst my own puzzle caches, five have gone more than a year since the last find. Another one, my astronomically-themed Dead Stars (GCA4AG7) rated 2.5/3 and published in February 2023, has only had 6 finders, the most recent in February this year. It's not a particularly difficult puzzle and one I put a lot of effort into with its themed container (a coffin containing dead stars), hiding place (a black hole) and white dwarf pointing the way:

 

 

But being in bushland on the Central Coast means it gets little interest once the small handful of diehards have done it, as most of the newer players around here are only interested in quick roadside traditionals that can be easily done using just the phone app.

 

Another of my themed puzzles, the 2/2.5 A Cow Named Anne (GC9JDPF) with a simple maze to solve, was published in November 2021 and has only had 15 finders, the last in July this year and the one before that in June 2023. It's in bushland in the northern Sydney suburb of Cowan (pronounced cow-anne, hence the cache name and theme) and is alongside the Great North Walk, but again it's a bit of a hike from the nearest parking so it gets little interest.

 

 

Of course sunsetting these caches would serve little purpose as the chance of anyone placing a new cache in the vicinity is vanishingly close to zero.

[+Goldenwattle]

38 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

Another of my themed puzzles, the 2/2.5 A Cow Named Anne (GC9JDPF) with a simple maze to solve

I've solved that, but I live in Canberra. might take me awhile to get there.

[+Weber_and_Sons]

On 11/27/2024 at 10:46 PM, mar103nerd said:

The biggest frustration I have personally had in particular has been the lack of Cache Owner Maintenance and Geocache Health Score. I have noticed is the lack of effort, poor communication and lack of response when you message CO's should you have a question. It has been discouraging to also drive somewhere to find a cache in not accessible.

There are a BUNCH of caches in my town by a certain person who i will not call out and not to be rude but they hid 40 caches and stopped geocaching which is frustrating cause you will hike 13 kilometers just for some dnfs and since i started caching i see a cycle of there caches be DNFed lots then disabled then archived.

[+JL_HSTRE]

11 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

Of course sunsetting these caches would serve little purpose as the chance of anyone placing a new cache in the vicinity is vanishingly close to zero.

 

Considering the caches you describe have an active CO, are not going years without finds, and are neither "mindreader" puzzles nor require a half dozen different decryptions, an understanding of music theory, advanced calculus, or other esoteric knowledge I don't see them as the kinds of puzzles that would be sunsetted as unsolvable.

[+fizzymagic]

On 12/6/2024 at 7:20 AM, JL_HSTRE said:

A difficult puzzle requires a lot of work to create, especially compared to a Challenge Cache. So it seems somewhat self-limiting.

Not true.  A good puzzle requires a lot of work to create.  A "difficult" puzzle is not hard to create, unless you also want it to be a good puzzle.

[+niraD]

1 hour ago, fizzymagic said:

A good puzzle requires a lot of work to create.  A "difficult" puzzle is not hard to create, unless you also want it to be a good puzzle.

I was recently reminded of the wonderful puzzles created by a certain average, everyday embassy employee. Those were often devilishly difficult, requiring the combined efforts of multiple puzzle enthusiasts to solve. But they were also very good, with logical connections between each step of the solution. I have some idea of how many hours were spent solving them. I hate to think how many hours were spent creating them.

[+JL_HSTRE]

8 hours ago, fizzymagic said:

A good puzzle requires a lot of work to create.  A "difficult" puzzle is not hard to create, unless you also want it to be a good puzzle.

 

I think that depends on what kind of puzzles you enjoy.