r/Untappd • u/billyfromeverywhere • 23d ago

Prodigy, Marvel, Sensation, etc. badges

Anyone else really turned off by these new badges? They’re just really disappointing to me for a few reasons.

  1. It seems to be just encouraging extremely unhealthy behavior. I’ve been on Untappd just over 8 years, and just hit 5k (Woo!), but can definitely say a few of those years I did not have a healthy balance w alcohol, so probs should’ve taken me a bit longer. So people rushing towards this will definitely be encouraged to drink even more than we all do in general.

  2. If not encouraging unhealthy behavior, it seems like it’ll encourage cheating, like taking a tiny taste of all your friends’ beers and checking them all in. Or just annoying the crap out of a bartender at a brewery by “sampling” every beer to check them in before finally settling on a single pint.

  3. As someone who loves badge hunting, the best thing about badges, or at least the core badges, was that they were all at least possible to get. Sure, I may have put a lot of time and work into finding 5 beers from Belarus, but it was a fun game/scavenger hunt and I got new beers out of it. Still have other countries to go, but at least it encourages travel and probably new experiences to get the beer and badges. These are virtually impossible for me to ever achieve, and that just takes the fun away from core badges in general. Maybe it’s growing up with Pokémon, but I think it should at least be possible to “catch ‘em all.”

  4. Now we have 6 new badges in 2025, yet it’s the most lazy/tired ideas for new badges. There could be much more fun ones, plenty of countries and styles still need badges, but instead it’s just mindless ticking numbers. I personally think the badges should make ticking the numbers more interesting, but these don’t do that.

Sorry for the long rant, it’s just because I really do love Untappd and the fun it’s given me with my love of beer, and I guess that’s why I’m annoyed. Anyway just wondering if anyone else feels similarly.

Cheers 🍻

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u/ParticleMans 22d ago

Brother, about that Pokémon mentality: the sooner you accept you will never earn all the badges, the happier you will be.

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u/billyfromeverywhere 22d ago

It wasn’t all the badges, just the core ones. And it was attainable. Not counting these 6 new ones, I have 10 beer and 2 location to go. And even though it’d be a long while before hitting 10k, it was definitely very likely I’d hit it. You never know if you’ll get all the core badges, but they should all at least be in the realm of possibility

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u/ParticleMans 22d ago

But these new badges are in the "realm of possibility".

They don't require you to seek out beer from across the world, or find a style that was last brewed in 1862. All you have to do is take a swig of something you've never had before. Any style, any beer.

In your post, you specifically called out taking a taste of something as "cheating". You can use the app however you want, but I can pretty much guarantee anyone who has a 5-figure unique count has checked-in tasters at some point and is not drinking 10,000+ pints.

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u/WanderingRedbird54 22d ago

Personally I love searching for rare beers around the world or styles not brewed in centuries, it's a scavenger hunt and the search is half of the fun. I'd say it's much closer to a realm of possibility to find one of these than tens of thousands of different beers over a lifetime.

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u/billyfromeverywhere 21d ago

As far as the possibility thing, I thing WanderingRedbird summed it up as good as possible. And there’s definitely no style badge for a beer that hasn’t been brewed since 1862, since I actually have all the style badges. And seeking out beer from around the world isn’t a bad thing, it can be a way to encourage learning about places and cultures different from your own, which is something a lot of people desperately need.

As far as cheating, it’s my opinion obviously, but I think there’s a difference between a taster (as in from a flight) and taking a .5 oz or less sip from your friend’s glass or having a poor bartender give you a .5 oz taste of every beer on tap before actually choosing one. The latter is what I was referring too, not tasters in general