Are data overlays like Sauce for Zwift cheating?

I think the one big difference (elephant in the room) is when Zwift riders use such data streams specifically to moderate their power output to stay within cat.

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That’s on Zwift to take the final step and move to either results based categories or roll CE to all races incl ZRL so that 20min number is no longer defining factor for fairness.

I like Sauce, its how Zwift should look - Modern, sleek, has a slightly ‘arcadey’ feel to it.

The only one note, if a user marks themselves as private, it should not be possible to fan view them or pull back their metrics from within the game but thats on Zwift not Sauce.

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Considering CE, how hard really though to tweak software like this to also show current 1, 2, 5 minute power levels?

But first, we would need to understand CE… and that is way above my pay grade!

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Zwift purposely don’t give the full calculation to CE which i kind of like but it does lead to a lot of questions from riders wondering here they are in a certain cat. and those events that don’t use CE are just getting worse for sandbaggers e.g ZRL.

Zwift are working on a better UI to explain things so hopefully that clears things up a bit until we can get a ranking system

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i dont even want to see half of the stuff on the regular zwift UI, i wish we could just customise that in the settings. i literally put 4cm duct tape over the top left of my monitor to hide my HR because i start hyper focusing on it when i look at it

I’d say the overlays aren’t cheating.
Some potential uses of some overlays include “controlling power”, which I would call “promotion avoidance” - which to my knowledge isn’t actually against any rules in Zwift, but is, to me, in bad faith.

I think that’s what this comes down to… not cheating but is it in the spirit of good sportsmanship? Sorta is… sorta isn’t, depending on your perspective.

I don’t think it’s the overlay itself - it’s potential uses of it. I’ve got no issues with the nice display of who’s in what group and gaps. That info is available in different ways. It’s people deliberately staying under category limit that I’ve a bit of an issue with.

Every major cycling computer does the same thing. If a sandbagger wants to see their 3-5 min power for CE or their 20 min power (current, trailing, or highest) for ZP they already have all the tools they need. Anyone can hop on Garmin Connect and download a customize-able data-field that will track a trailing average and the highest value for any time period. Sand will be bagged whether apps like this are around or not.

Sauce gives users a customizeable UI. You can move the elements around, add or change data fields, change color and transparency, etc. It would be nice if Zwift did this natively, but it doesn’t. Getting rid of sauce would be misguided.

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We need THIS graph in Zwift! Pure adrenaline.

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“Cheating” is an extreme word. It does not reveal things that are meant to be secret.

However, I think it is important for a multiplayer gaming platform to give equal information and tools to all its users and since this can run only on windows and mac, it puts at some disadvantage, however small, the rest of the users that are actually quite a lot.

From one hand, I am grateful that zwift’s packet can be sniffed and we have an active add-on building community. On the hand, I think it would best for zwift to ensure that all players in all platforms get the same experience and have a level playing field.

PS: By far the most useful widget for me is the indicator of the various groups. It would be nice for zwift to implement this.

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That’s exactly what zwift are doing the app is near identical on all platforms.

They way i see it is the riders choice to use ATV or other platforms where tools are not available. In the same way some riders don’t have a headunit that would give similar info or a DS watching them racing these are factors that zwift can’t control but give advantages to riders if they decide to make use of them.

You could argue that sauce crosses the line and zwift would be fully in their right to try block it but a lot of the info it provides can be gained from other sources even for ATV users just it presents it better.

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some do.

I use data to see (retrospectively on youtube) what draft each of our riders had throughout the race.

Is that cheating? it might gain us an advantage in being able to maximise future drafts, but we certainly aren’t using data in the way you suggest.

I’m not disagreeing with you. I think Sauce for Zwift is great. All I’m saying is that I can see where people who don’t like it are coming from to an extent, not than I disagree with them. This has far more uses than category manipulation, including just looking better than the native Zwift HUD. I had more of a problem with Zwift Activity Monitor than this, especially with the live and peak 95% of 20min value front and center by default.

To me, this isn’t an analogue to aimbots in shooters or bug exploits (like the weight change in the pen bug that’s since been closed)

the more time people spend looking at the numbers then the easier it is going to be get a 1s gap 400m from the finish. and you don’t need an app to tell you that the best draft is last wheel

it’s probably better used as a training tool

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I am not sure if we are making the same or different point :slight_smile:

A more clear answer from me is that I don’t find it cheating, I agree that you can get the same information in different ways (though it needs a bit more work) and I would like to see Zwift’s HUD improved with more meaningful information on the riders’ list so that everyone has easy access.

I am curious though if it is just the “wow” effect. I can’t recall to ever done a race that this information would have made a difference.

I think we agree. I’d like similar tools for all if possible but don’t see this as cheating either.

Obviously under official events things may be different, but this IS just data zwift allready present to you, i could watch all this data on zwiftpower anyways.
My main usecase for sauce is the MUCH improved chat and group window aswell as the top bar that shows me rideon count, avg hr, avg pace ect.
I also enjoy hiding my zwift UI so that the anoying original chat goes away, it’s messy and useless and gives me no clue as to who actually wrote it.
(no offence devs but you know it’s true)
My riding experience has gone from (maby i’ll ride solo or just lie on the couch) to (I can’t wait to ride with my team and interact with everyone)

We all know how lawyers and legal teams work, and their main concern is reputation.
Reputation is money and they may actually send a cease and desist just bechause they are afraid of some future event where a snow-flake competitors goes to court over loosing a race to someone who used sauce to view tactical data rather than zwift.

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