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Cache Difficulty/Terrain Rating Form


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Nope. You're more than welcome to use your own intuition when it comes to rating your own caches. The system is merely a suggestion, not a mandate that you use the rating it comes up with. Is the cache wheelchair accessible in a 360 degree radius (our reviewer is now suggesting this for a T rating of 1)? Is it a really easy puzzle to solve? The puzzle portion is the part where things can get tricky. As the creator of the puzzle, you know how to solve it so it will probably be easy to you. However, other cachers may have brain issues and not see the forest for the trees when it comes to solving your puzzle. Sometimes, asking someone to look at your puzzle with a fresh set of eyes will give you a better perspective on how to rate it.

Edited by coachstahly
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You know how when you create a geocache, most people go to the link, where it says, 'use this system to rate your geocache'. One of my results was 1/1, but my cache was a mystery cache. Should Geocaching.com put different rating systems? e.g. multi, mystery etc. :blink:

 

No, cache D/T rating is easy once you get the hang of it. Just keep finding geocaches and gain experience. :)

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If you feel strongly that the rating system has not accurately captured the experience of your cache, adjust the rating.
+1

 

I tend to pay more attention to the text descriptions on the Help Center page Ratings for Difficulty and Terrain (D/T) myself. That's what new geocachers expect, since they generally haven't gone through the cache listing process, and thus haven't seen the rating system form.

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The questions on the rating system page seem to focus on Terrain-related questions. The last question is the only one used to calculate the Difficulty rating, and even then it's only for finding the cache container when the cacher knows the final coordinates. With a puzzle, it's also important to consider the puzzle itself when determining Difficulty.

 

I prefer to reference the D/T ratings chart. The comments in that chart touch on solving puzzles, but even then it is subjective. A puzzle may be easy to solve within 10-15 minutes for a cacher that has seen that type of puzzle before, or for a cacher that is already familiar with the subject matter. For another cacher, that puzzle may take much longer than 10-15 minutes. Just use your best judgment and keep an eye on what cachers say in their logs. This will help you determine whether to change the D-rating on your Mystery cache, and will also guide you on what D-rating to choose for future Mystery caches you place.

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One of my results was 1/1, but my cache was a mystery cache.

 

That's a mystery to me. If your cache has a puzzle one needs to solve to get the coordinates, you would select "Cache may be very well hidden, may be multi-leg, or may use clues to location.", which gives you a D=3.

 

If the puzzle is hard to solve, like when it "requires special skills, knowledge" or even "requires very specialized knowledge" it could also be D=4 or D=5.

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