Views on difficulty and terrain rating?

[u/Slobbering_Feaster]

I want to create a series of 6 high difficulty caches (3-5 D rating) with a bonus cache attached to the series. The bonus cache is of around 2 D rating as a hide itself, but what rating should it get given you need to find the rest of the series as a prerequisite?

[u/JonExplainsStuffYT]

Just remember that you’ll have a lot less finders on a high difficulty series.

[u/Minimum_Reference_73 → u/JonExplainsStuffYT]

This is a feature, not a bug.

[u/Kangaroo_Kurt → u/JonExplainsStuffYT]

Yes that's a fair observation, but I have a bunch of other easier ones out there as well. Sometimes it's good to put out a bunch of tough ones for the more experienced guys to go for.

[u/TheRealTimTam]

If there is even a single D5 as a prerequisite then the bonus is a d5 too

[u/Minimum_Reference_73]

Remember that these ratings are meant to be useful information. People treat them as a reward or a score, but that is not their primary function.

I would rate it based on the hide itself, or maybe nudge it up by half a point. Getting clues from other geocaches is not a difficult task in and of itself, even if finding those other caches was difficult.

It's also usually the case that these series + bonus situations fall into disrepair and the coordinates to the "bonus" cache need to be distributed on the cache page, or they get shared through the cacher grapevine.

Be aware that the other caches are not actually "prerequisites." In theory, someone could get the coordinates another way (photos, sharing with friends, stumbling on it by accident) and log the cache without doing the series. This is a bonus cache, not a challenge cache.

[u/FiveBoro2MD]

If you have to find a D5 to be able to find the final cache, I believe it also deserves a D5 rating.

[u/LeatherWarthog8530]

Rate every cache on its own merits. To do otherwise is simply inflating people's statistics.

[u/Appropriate-Arm3598]

I'm of the opinion that the bonus should be given the rating of the hide itself. There's a bonus near me that requires 100 other caches to solve but it's old half of those others have been archived, nothing is being maintained anymore so the only way to get the coordinates to the bonus is to ask somebody who already got it. Easiest 5/5 you will ever get. 

[u/fizzymagic]

I don't have anything useful to add on the ratings, but I do want to dissuade you from doing the series. I absolutely despise doing series where I have to keep track of some bit of information on each cache I find for a so-called "bonus" cache at the end. The other caches will go missing or the containers with the information will be lost or something else will go wrong and people won't be able to get the coordinates for the final.

These series always feel to me like manipulation to get you to do more of the owner's caches, regardless of whether you want to or not. So I usually choose not to do them. Just put out high-quality caches that are fun to do and desirable to seek and/or solve and dispense with the bonus. It feels desperate.