New belts and points

Question

Hi,

i'm wondering if there are any new belts or points coming?

For example STF and TTF are used on logs but are not valued anywhere.

Badges for the total distance the travel bugs you own have traveled.

Badges for the total distance a geocacher moved travel bugs (own and others).

Rate of favourite points on owned caches (the rate is important, not the number).

The number of countries for which at least 50% of the zones have been covered.

The number of countries in which at least 5 different cache types have been found.

And many other ideas.

I know that the belts and points are produced based on someone else's idea but it's been there for some time and maybe it should evolve.

Thanks.

Arnaud.

Answer 1

Aside form that badges and belts belong to BadgeGen (Kyle Mills) and would need his permission to change them...

NOOOO!!!!

No to STF and TTF.

Badges are something to strive for. If you will specifically avoid a FTF in order to get a STF then it might be a candidate. Will you avoid getting the FTF in order to get a STF?

No to total move of bugs. - bugs should be put back into the wild as soon as possible. Hanging on to them in order to improve this stat is against the ethos of travel bugs (yes, I know you could move it to the other side of the world with a single air flight, but this stat would encourage hanging on to them).

Some of your others do sound good - talk to Kyle.

Answer 2

New features may well be added to BadgeGen, but if so they will originate with the GSAK macro version of BadgeGen and we will add the same thing here. To suggest new features you need to talk to the author of the GSAK macro.

It's not so long since BadgeGen changed last, which was the addition of the small numbered badge on diamond badges that you have achieved multiple times (which, incidentally, was my feature request!). The Diverse Cacher (types/day) was also added after Project-GC started having BadgeGen.

Answer 3

pinkunicorn has answered your main point, but I wanted to make a few observations about a couple of your ideas:

STF and TTF are much less recognised than FTF. I know some people do mention it, but I'm personally not bothered about them and don't note when I've been second or third.

The total distance for TBs is not in the control of the cacher. I wouldn't want a badge that I'm not in control of whether I achieve it or not.

It's really good that people continually have new ideas for badges, but as pinkunicorn said, they need to be suggested to the author of BadgeGen for GSAK.

Comments

You are not in control of all badges today. The Favorite Cacher is dependent on FP on your hides.
There is also a technical reason for the total distance for TBs and that is that is not easy to do in GSAK. The TB badeges require you to get the numbers yourself from the web site

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That's true, but you do at least have a degree of influence over that one - you can set amazing caches! ;)

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To the author of BadgeGen, not FindStatGen. They are two different GSAK macros.

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Oh yes, my mistake! I've edited that now. Thanks!

Answer 4

I think a complete review and update of BadgeGen would be really welcome.

First There are specific badges which are almost impossible to gain now. For example, what's the use of the "The Ape Cacher" and "The Lost & Found Cacher" these days? Lost & Found caches were a very temporary thing 6 years ago, and impossible to find now. Same thing with "The Ape Cacher": there's only one Ape cache left now, the rest is long long gone. And I still have to encounter the first cacher that has found more than 2 of either of these cache types.

Second, there's several badges where I feel that the counts needed for the next badge is out of balance. For example, 80 FTFs needed for a gemstone, and 300 FTFs to complete the badges? I feel that count is far too hihg and is one of the reasons why there are so many "golddiggers" around. Then STFs and TTF are indeed not valued at all, as others have said already.

Another imbalance is found with the amount of discovered/moved Travel Bugs versus Coins. Just a visit to a geocoin fest will produce the ultimate gemstone for Coins in one go. However, most of the Travel Bugs encountered are not counted because they are not Travel Bug Dog Tags. Farm Tags, Country Tags etc are all ignored.

Then, over time, there are only less and less Virtual Caches and Webcam Caches to be found, as no new ones are created anymore. Since it's harder for new cachers to get anywhere near to the amounts needed for a gemstone badge, I would expect the numbers needed to diminish over time.

But instead, the badges and the counts needed to score them are static. While in real life certain cache types have completely gone or are harder and harder to find. While BadgeGen as is was probably great at the time it was produced, it doesn't necessarily represent the current possibilities in the geocaching landscape.

Comments

I agree that the Lost & Found caches and APE caches are mistakes. Not in BadgeGen, though, but that they are special cache types at all. Given today's system, they should have been souvenirs.

I don't agree that the FTF number is extremely high, though. It takes time and work to reach the highest levels, that's true. On the other hand I'd say that's the whole idea of the higher levels: they should be hard. That said, I know multiple people who have looped the FTF badge multiple times.

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I agree that with FTF the numbers required are not high - I have #4 on the diamond badge for that one and don't think aiming to achieve those is hard if it is something you strive for.  Myabe instead of having such big gaps - more achievable gaps would be better.
I do think that the gaps between one level and the next once they go above Diamond (for all categories) do become fairly extreme and put me in the - 'I'll aim for that next' to 'oh, that'll happen one day, maybe' so wont push myself.
I have had many, many STFs and TTFs but have never logged them in the same way as I have FTFs. I did consider once going through all my logs to chack STFs, as I had done with FTF, to ensure all were captured. But with my find count I was quickly turned off the idea.
Also I think just as much as we all know not everyone logs their FTFs in a way that will be captured for the stats - even less will for STFs and TTFs and so the stats capture will be, frankly. pointless.

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Actually, there will soon be (if there isn't already) two active APE caches again since one of the missing (and archived) ones was recently found and will be reactivated. That still doesn't make it an easy find but it's possible to get a find of one. Also, since the one that will be activated again is in the US instead of Brazil, the number of people who can reach it will increase.

Answer 5

Thank you all of you for the feedback.

I don't think removing or changing existing badges is a good idea because the geocachers who had achieved them will be disappointed and it's never good to go back and change things. I'm more in favor of adding more badges which will in turn create more challenges for the ones of us who like the challenges.

I don't think the number of FTF is too high.

Another badge idea. Since there is a new stat about log similarity, it would be nice to create a badge for it so that visitors leave nice stories specific to a cache and not just a "TFTC", this is similar to the log length badge.

Answer 6

The badges would inspire me. 

F-One

Answer 7

I hope that the actual badges, belts and points is perfect.

Answer 8

Additional idea:

Badge for placed months found between 2000 and 2016 (15 years of geocaching)

Badge for placed months found between 2000 and 2001 (Jasmer challenge)

Badge for placed days found

I'd like to keep the discussion going and cast some formal votes before sending to Kyle.

Comments

If you check Kyle's suggestion page (http://badgegen.com/suggestion-list.php) you can see that a number of the ideas listed in this thread have already been proposed and considered. Kyle isn't very active at the moment and the page hasn't been updated for some time, but I think the last change to it was to add the "finds by month placed" (i.e. Jasmer) badge suggestion which I agree is a good idea and probably will be added the next time Kyle has time for this project.

Answer 9

No stupid new badges !!!

Please define only challenging targets without stupid runs to new caches. From my point of view there are enough badges and enough criteria for belts. We want to go Geocaching and not calculate the best statistics.

Please move your body in nature!

Regards nico

Comments

I find the appeal of getting certain badges motivates me to go and get more caches. More badges leads to more caching. If you don't want a certain badge, ignore it.

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Yes you are right. More competence more caching. But the run for FTF during the night also for caches which are strictly forbidden to search in the night, the goal to get caches with more and more difficulty can risk our hobby. For instance the rangers found a cache in 55m hight on a natural monument (the highest spruce in Saxony). We really  don't need a STF or TTF badge. Caching is a nature sport.