Anti sandbagging and other areas that need development and communication

[xflintx (Flint)]

It’ll be a new year’s present instead, that much I can assure you.

[Marko_TeamVegan (Marko)]

Which year?

I kid because I care

[Jeff_Henck (Jeff)]

I’m not at liberty to say when we’ll see this shipped or what form it will take, though I can tell you it’s coming.

[gloscherrybomb (James)]

@xflintx

I understand there has been discussion in this thread about pen enforcement in lieu of cateegory enforcement, or other better ways to tackle the issue of sandbagging. This system should ultimately be able to answer that, it just won’t answer that right this second with its first incarnation

Great news. We’ve never said we need it all immediately. Use category enforcement to start with and more dynamic ways of splitting pens (and enforcing these) can come next.

Is there any news on a ranking system, or is that a longer term project?

[Michael_Sparshatt (Michael)]

Thanks @xflintx appreciate this reply. We recognise this won’t solve all things right away, but it will go a huge way to improving racing for a large proportion of the population, especially at C and D level.

[Steven_Painter (Steven)]

Thanks, the sooner the better, definitely not expecting a perfect solution but this sounds good.

[Alan_Wyers_Team_TFC (Alan)]

This is certainly a step in the right direction, many thanks to you and the team who are working on this…

[Mark_Crane_TOG_G_65y (Mark)]

@xflintx

It’ll be a new year’s present instead, that much I can assure you.

This is spectacularly great news for me since I won’t be back on the trainer until the January '22 update and probably not ready to race for at least another coupla months. I get to be there for the rollout (assuming the doctors say it’s okay) and then take part in the figuring out all of the bugs for the next month or so!

[M_Bz (Marco)]

Thanks for this crystal clear update. It is much easier to be patient knowing that the priorities align. Good stuff and happy holidays.

[Paul_Rayner (Paul)]

@xflintx

It’ll be a new year’s present instead, that much I can assure you.

New Year’s Presents usually means by the end of January. If it goes into February then it’s really for Valentine’s Day, and March or April are Easter presents.

[Donald_Munro (Donald)]

@Paul_Rayner

March or April are Easter presents.

If its and application easter egg, will it be as good as Skyrim’ headless horseman ? Perhaps make all sandbaggers into headless cyclists ?

[Daren (Daren Chandisingh)]

@Paul_Rayner

New Year’s Presents usually means by the end of January.

In my house, a New Year’s present means New Year’s Day.

[Gerrie_Delport_ODZ (Gerrie)]

@Gordon_Rhino-Racing

Nope, lets not go there that’s what gets discussions shut down.

You know stuff.

[Gerrie_Delport_ODZ (Gerrie)]

@xflintx

We are not creating matchmaking, we are simply implementing a floor for categories.

Is it just me but I am getting excited for something we are not getting.

Thanks for the update @xflintx , early nee year is going to feel like Christmas.

[Paul_McCombes (Paul)]

@xflintx

In short, what I’m trying to help get built for racing is not the classic Zwift quick solution that will ultimately require more work to undo in the future and I hope that comes through here. We’re trying to do this with growth in racing and competition in mind.

Ah - Zwift discovers technical debt.

[Jerry_Fisher (Jerry)]

My solution:
-ELO or similar ranking system for riders (also for TTT teams)
-Reduce number of events, so that 1000+ riders will participate in each event
-In a event with 1000+ people, every 50 riders is new category

Of course:
-Ranking system could be expanded so it would include past race results and power profiling at several durations
-Organizator of event could modify number of riders per category, point here is that if in a event there is a huge number of participants and a lot of categories, then all racers would be at similar level and tactic would be more interesting
-etc.

[James_Zwift (James)]

So, basically, delete loads of events so that each race has 1k+ in them?

Have you met our Community Event organisers?

[Jerry_Fisher (Jerry)]

Group rides, Community Events can stay the way it is, number of races would decrase but not that drastically…

Outside there is not a lot of participants in amateur races, why? Because if you’re not dedicated and performing on top level, you will be on bottom in the results.

Zwift has unique opportunity to create system where people would rather race on Zwift than outside and competing agains similar strong opponents.

[_JamesA_ZSUNR]

It’s an interesting perspective and a useful discussion to have but I think that approach would be overly prescriptive. What we need is diversity in experiences, not a perfectly matched identikit race each time. I don’t mind getting dropped some of the time, so long as it’s not all the time. The current system fails in that the same people get dropped all the time, unless and until they choose to sandbag their way into the lower cat or give up racing.

[James_Zwift (James)]

@Jerry_Fisher

Group rides, Community Events can stay the way it is, number of races would decrase but not that drastically…

Okay, understood, but I think you’re missing how many Community Events there actually are.

I think your point is that for Zwift/Partner sanctioned events the volume of these are reduced. Which in itself is a fair point, but we also receive significant amounts of feedback when events aren’t on at times that people would like to ride.

We are able to limit the number of entrants per event, but we don’t have the functionality to carry over into a new event.

I agree with James. Diversity is key. We (this is James/Community not Zwift) don’t want “yet another 20-30k scratch race”. We want innovative types of racing that make things a little bit different and interesting away from the norm.