We’ve made an adjustment/fix to the drafting effect that’s now enabled for game version 1.102 and newer. Here’s how you can check what version you’re using.
Up until now our drafting algorithm didn’t properly use road incline/decline percentage in the equations and this change will fix the issue. The steeper the climb or descent, the more the change will be noticeable.
The end result is:
You’ll be able to stay with riders just ahead on steep climbs with slightly less effort than before.
Staying in the draft behind a rider while going downhill will be much easier than before - you should be able to draft supertucked riders easily now.
Pack speeds on the downhills will be slightly higher than before in general, on the order of 10-15% on steeper descents.
Drafting on flat roads is unchanged, and speeds while riding solo are also unaffected.
For group rides and races making it to the top of a climb with the group is more important than before because of the points above
One thing that seems pretty unrealistic in terms of descending… is speeds around tight corners. At one point Zwift was talking about enabling some form of braking on corners, but it was not released. With massive packs going 10-15% faster I wonder if it might be worth investigating cornering behavior of the packs to be slightly more in-line with what would physically be possible for a large group?
If someone tries to claw back after getting dropped on a climb today it’s already pretty difficult.
First: I’d like to see autobraking in descent corners, too.
But secondly: I think this change will mean less people getting dropped on climbs. The draft will be stronger, so especially those poor light riders will now have it easier sitting in the draft on descents…
I don’t know how much of a feedback you have but our League yesterday had Watopia’s Waistband Route and around 70 Racers Per Pen.
Mostly all the comments are around how hard/bad the racing is on the flats now just to stay in the draft.
I will comment on my experience in saying that i hate racing on a flat courses now and i’m a sprinter. It just a Sweetspot/Treshold effort to stay in the draft in a groups of +50 racers…there is almost no tactical racing and having a 50km race with 75mins of Z4.
The dot points suggest there is no change on flat courses. I will have to go with a fast robopacers group to see if any change to last week where Constance group on volcano circuit was doing regular 5m:30sec laps. That wasn’t impossible, you just had to be very watchful to not let any gaps form otherwise Constance and front five riders would be gone in an instant and you’d have to sprint back with ~7.0w/kg to close up the 3 seconds gap.
I did 5 laps of the grade yesterday so couldn’t really test anything drafting related, aside from being in the draft of one rider as they went past me on the downhill.
I wonder, do that many people care about this? Given us lighter folk apparently have it too easy on flats (seen that comment a few times, also recently). I doubt us light riders are that many.
Yeah, that’s probably true, it probably depends on the length and grade of the climbs, as well as what racing category we are talking about. A long sustained steep grade might not give D riders the same benefit as B/A riders given the difference in climbing speeds etc, so it might not be enough to carry them to the top, then catching up will be harder.
Again, probably need to see it and feel it in action. Would like pack speeds around corners to be a bit more realistic either way
If riders will not push on the descents the group shouldn’t be any faster cause you can’t pass a rider that is supertucking with 0 Watts. Most likely the % of how much easier it will be is very small.
I’m trying to understand the mechanistic change here and with it working to make drafting easier both up and down hills, my hunch is that previously the draft cone extended horizontally behind the rider regardless of slope, and now the cone extends parallel to the slope the draft-giving rider is on. Is that correct?
As a light rider when the group changes from a blob to single file at a fast pace on flat sections I feel the draft completely disappears even though I am still in touch.
I’m 100% for auto breaking, but ONLY, if they can get it right. Entry speed just before turn-in should be the slowest point, with speed maintaining or increasing through the apex and then building until the exit. The 180 in London shows how not to do it, where it essentially just hits you with a temporary speed limit for a given section leading into, through and out of the bend. (Bonus points if your with a pacing bot that doesn’t respect this speed restriction.)
This would have the opposite effect. Think of a right triangle. The hypotenuse is longer than the legs. For ease of math, assume a 100% gradient, which is a 45,45,90 triangle. If the draft cone extends 10 meters horizontally, but the riders are all on the slope of the road, that equates to 10*sqrt(2) ~ 14m of draft along the actual virtual road. If they switch to calculating parallel to the road, then you just get 10m.
Somebody with pull at Zwift REALLY likes all races to end in bunch sprints. In particular, bunch sprints where the heavier riders got dropped off the back on the climb and weren’t able to chase back on on the descents due to faster pack speed.
Probably the same person who likes it that heavier sprinters have to burn a lot more matches to keep up with the lighter riders coming out of the subways in NYC because the escalators give all riders the same number or raw W as a boost.
