According to the link below, even if you’re able to upgrade during a ride, the ride log should still be saved afterward.
I’ve experienced this several times myself. Thank you for fixing it.
However, in the following case, my ride log was not saved.
First, I left the MTB in a state where it is able to be upgraded and waited until enough Drops had accumulated.
Next, I did the same with the TT bike—left it until enough Drops had accumulated.
Then, once I had enough Drops, I upgraded the TT bike.
After that, the ride log for the TT bike was gone, and the upgrade started completely from zero minutes.
About 40 minutes of ride data was lost, so I’m posting here to see if there’s any way to recover it.
As has been pointed out elsewhere, in order to keep your earned progress towards upgrades, you have todo the upgrade during (or at the end of) the ride in which you earned it. If you earn the upgrade, but don’t buy it, and then save/exit that ride, the next time you come back to Zwift you can still purchase the upgrade, but any previous progress towards the next upgrade is lost and you start from zero.
I think it’s important to note that “start from zero” doesn’t mean you go all the way back to the start of a level 1 on the upgrade path.
You simply lose any ride progress during that session that went past the point of the upgrade earned, which could have counted towards the next level.
As an example, you earn level 3.
Any progress past level 3 could be “banked” towards level 4 if you have enough drops and purchase the upgrade before you exit that Zwift session.
If don’t have enough drops and you exit without purchasing level 3, the amount of progress past level 3 will be discarded.
That’s the “zero” mentioned in the previous posts.
You can still purchase the level 3 upgrade when you accumulate enough drops.
Nigel and Dan, Thanks for the comments. Just to clarify:
I didn’t mean that the upgrade stage itself went back to the beginning.
The stage was kept, but the ride log (about 40 minutes of progress within that stage) was lost.
I now understand that this behavior is currently “by design.”
However, from a user experience perspective, it feels problematic that ride progress can be lost unless the user takes special care to purchase the upgrade during the same session.
As a rider, it feels discouraging that my effort and ride data can be invalidated by design rather than by choice. I believe most users would expect their progress to be preserved automatically, just like in other aspects of Zwift.
Could you consider improving this behavior so that ride progress is consistently saved, even if the upgrade is purchased later? I think this would make the experience much clearer and more user-friendly.
I do not work for Zwift, I cannot make changes to Zwift.
I think the design is appropriate.
It makes sense to me that you can’t continue progress towards the next level until you actually purchase the level you just achieved. If you do not purchase that level, any progress towards the next level should not be saved if you exit the session.
If you level up during a ride, the “grace period” of your current ride is good, since it keeps you from having to stop your ride just to purchase the upgrade earned, and then start progress towards the next level.
The thing that bothers me about it is the fact that some users are confused by it. It would be helpful if there were some kind of alert that said hey you are about to lose this upgrade progress unless you pay up now.
I agree, but where to post that alert?
Immediately after ending the ride? The option to purchase the upgrade is still available.
Before quitting the game? The option is still available then.
It’s tough to “trap” the exit to display the alert since you can force quit an app on mobile, and use the “X” to quit also. The “x” typically is not an application function you can capture - it’s OS level functionality.
Ideally it would be as close to the point where you lose the progress as is possible, or they could retain that progress until the point where the next activity is started (whether game is restarted or not) and warn at that point. They could also alert when the current activity is saved and point out that progress will be lost when the next activity is started or on game exit unless purchased before then.
The red alert on the garage works for some people, but only if you clear that alert whenever you get a garage addition/unlock, like a jersey, socks, cap, etc…
Not everyone does that.
Thanks, Paul and Dan
Here is a summary to consider your reply.
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Proposed ideas for improvement**
I’d like to suggest two possible approaches to improve the user experience while respecting the current game design:
Natural ride–friendly approach
Regardless of the upgrade stage, ride logs would always accumulate.
Whether to purchase the upgrade or not is entirely up to the user.
In this case, the rider never loses progress, but the current game mechanic of “progress only after purchase” would no longer apply.
Respecting the current game design
Once a stage upgrade is reached, any extra ride log already earned would not be erased, but no further progress would be saved until the upgrade is purchased.
Similar to the announcements shown when riding a TT bike, a clear message could be displayed, such as: “Additional ride progress will not be saved until the upgrade is purchased.”
Between these two, the first option would make the experience more intuitive for riders, but if preserving the current game mechanic is important, at least the second option would help reduce user confusion.
