When I join an event I am registering for that event. This is my expression of interest in participating, nothing more.
I absolutely do not want to join an event TWENTY MINUTES before it begins, I would rather be, you know, riding.
Under no circumstances do I want to continuously be presented with ‘join now?’ up until the time of the event. I know what I registered for, I don’t want spam messages popping up that require my constant dismissal.
Finally, and most importantly, please STOP the auto-join feature that forces me to OPT OUT of leaving my current cycling activity. Making me use my Apple TV remote (or my keyboard, when I’m using my PC) to continue my current activity is absolutely asinine.
I know what I signed up for, I know when it starts, and I am also acutely aware that many times I intend to join these events within the 30-min late join window.
This is a terrible user experience and I cannot believe that it has not been removed yet. At the very least, let us disable the feature.
The Auto-Join feature can be useful. I would not want that to go away. It’s not terribly difficult to un-register for an event if you’ve decided not to go.
However, I completely agree that the constant nagging needs to stop. It used to be that if you clicked the [X], the nag window closed and didn’t come back. That changed some time ago and I don’t know of a way to stop it now. Zwift - please bring that feature back.
I find it pretty difficult to unregister for an event in some situations. For example, I am smashing it in a race and I keep getting alerted about joining some other event. I can’t take focus away from what I’m doing to unregister or my ride is ruined. Why is auto-join helpful? I mean you can always click the join button if you want to join, rather than being auto-joined. Seems 100% useless to me, and sometimes harmful.
I can see how that would be challenging. I try not to register for overlapping events.
Auto-join is useful if, say, you’re trying to unlock your club jersey, but the ride starts at 3:00 am. You can set up your avatar before you go to bed, he will automatically join the starting pen, and then you can complete the ride in the morning.
Many people want the ability to join an event 20 minutes early. I do it all the time to grab a front-row spot, and then leave the event and go ride somewhere else until 5 min to or so.
There’s a fine line between nagging and reminding. The ‘too many reminders’ issue could be solved with a ‘Set Reminder’ option when you first sign up. If you leave that blank, you get no reminder. Or defaults to a single 5 min reminder. Or defaults to a 20 min and a 5 min, but you can opt out of them all at sign-up.
The forced Opt-Out doesn’t seem good, agreed. If someone really has forgotten about the event, a 5 min reminder popping onto their screen for 30 seconds or so would give them enough time to hit Accept or Enter or whatever. And it could default to going away after the 30 seconds and leaving you doing whatever you’re doing. The time it stays up could change depending on what else you’re doing, too. If you’re in a Race, I could see a popup either not happening at all, or going away very quickly. If you’re just free riding, it could stay for longer.
The argument of “I know what I signed up for” is going to be countered by a lot of people who will say “Sometimes I forget what I’ve signed up for”. The better solution would be some customization–let people get the reminders they want, not the ones they don’t. Best overall solution would likely be the option of opting out of notifications when you originally sign up for the event. That way the super careful people who always know and remember what they’re doing will remember to opt out, and the more forgetful people won’t have to worry about forgetting to opt in.
There’s an enormous difference between getting a reminder and auto-join where if you fail to dismiss the reminder, your current ride is ended. Some kind of reminder is fine. Auto-join should die in a fire, IMO.
Agreed. Defaulting to not joining is better than leaving the reminder up until you click a button, which is better than automatically sending you to the event.
Auto-join should be an option rather than the default. And if a user chooses to have it off, they should have the option to turn it on for a single event.
It’d be interesting to see the figures on how events are entered. Directly from the home menu, auto-join from a ride, or manual selection from a ride. I practically never use auto-join, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was the most common method amongst all users.
I sometimes let the autojoin do it’s thing at the 5 min point. As I mentioned, I’ll go into the event 20ish min early, grab a spot, and then go ride somewhere else. I’ll cancel out of the earlier “Hey buddy do ya wanna join now!?” messages, but 5 min is about when I’m heading back to the event anyway, so sometimes I’ll just let that one run rather than picking up my mouse and clicking an option. Just to say that I’m also in favor of those going away, but I do sometimes use them all the same.
When I register for an event, it means I intend to ride it. Sometimes my intentions change but - once I’ve declared an intention - I’m happy to be encouraged to keep to it.
If it’s a big ride, I do like to join an event early (say 20 minutes), simply to get me a position at the front of the start pen. Sometimes I then go to do a warm-up ride elsewhere but having said this, I would prefer it if positions in the pen were set by when I registered, rather than when I join, so I didn’t have to go through that process.
I do want a reminder as soon as I can join the pen (so 30 minutes). I do want to know when there are 10 and 5 minutes to go. Anything more than this would be a bit much.
I’d like Zwift to please KEEP the auto-join feature, which follows the assumption that if I have signed up for an event then I WANT to ride it, and means I don’t have to use a keyboard or Apple TV remote to join an event I’ve signed up for.
If I sign up for an event and then change my mind, I see it as my responsibility to hit cancel.
Don’t disagree (and said similar things), but the ideal solution would be customization, right? Let him turn those things off, let you and I keep some or all of them.
But it’s good to point out the disagreement–there have been times when features have been removed because people complained, but others were using them, and the complaints come back from the other side.
Hi Tom and yes I totally agree the ideal solution would be customisation.
I never like to disagree but I’ll always stand up when I believe in something - whether it’s something I believe in myself or something I know others believe in.
I’ll disagree–I like to disagree If it can be managed without ing on the person (I don’t always succeed at that part, sorry to say), it’s better and helpful. Discussions are definitely more interesting with civil disagreement.
None of us will ever get it right all the time - we all have good days and bad days and sometimes that comes out in our words in ways we don’t intend, especially when it’s through text rather than in person.
i think a big problem (among many!) with this is the fact the messages in the companion app and in game are independent of each other - if you dismiss the notification in the CA it does nothing in game.
Huh, I’ll have to see how it behaves for me. My recollection is that dismissing in CA dismisses in the game, but not vice versa. I’ll be in the pen warming up and CA will still be asking if I want to join, but I seem to remember both accepting (obviously here) and canceling in CA and having that take in the game. The lower screen countdown timer still is there.
but if you click “not now” on the companion it will still go to auto join when the time gets there and there is no pop up in the companion app when auto join appears that would let you not join.
Yeah that’s what I thought didn’t happen for me, but I could easily be misremembering. I thought canceling in CA canceled on the main app. (It’s always ‘for me’ in Zwift, isn’t it? )
I try not to register for overlapping events.
Just to say that I’m also in favor of those going away, but I do sometimes use them all the same.
If it can be managed without 
ing on the person (I don’t always succeed at that part, sorry to say), it’s better and helpful. Discussions are definitely more interesting with civil disagreement. 
)