OK… Unfortunately this post only makes things worse, and really shows contempt for the community that make Zwift what it is. I know it’s not you, specifically, but I gotta raise a few points:
Lets have a look at the points in turn:
“‘The Ultimate Undetectable Weight Cheat on Zwift’. This is not true. Our server captures changes made by players to their profiles”
Right, and what action is taken against these riders who perform those changes? Does it automatically flag with a team who review these? Are those who make these changes in races routinely warned or suspended for cheating? Do you do this for major events such as Zwift Academy, Community Races, WTRL?
Or do you only investigate when, as you put it, " Players who weight-dope in a race are routinely detected by other participants by putting out suspiciously high w/Kg values. If you suspect others of cheating - we ask that you report"
Which basically confirms that the point first above does not happen, you rely on players reporting this. See, the main issue here, is that in races people generally aren’t watching every other riders power. Also, if I’ve been at 3.4 on the flat, and then at 4.4 on the climb, that doesn’t look weird. I’m not about to fanview everyone in hopes of checking their heartrates.
Now on this part of your post:
“Having shared details on how to exploit Zwift in multiple public forums, the originator has been found to be in breach of these terms of service. As a result, their social interactions with other Zwifters has been limited, they will not be visible to other Zwifters in events, and they will not show in Zwift race or ride results for a period of 30 Days. Unless it’s an invite-only event, this doesn’t prevent core use of the game.”
Unfortunately you have misrepresented the entire scenario, so I’ve helped out a bit in rewording it for you:
“Having flagged how to exploit Zwift repeatedly for over 2 years, Zwift has taken aim at the community in order to try and shift blame for not performing a relatively easy fix. It came to a point where, although the exploit has been known and used for 2 years, that members of the community who have more respect for the Zwift community than Zwift HQ actually does have decided to flag this in a way that can’t be ignored. In response, Zwift has decided to penalise this individual for making public how poor Zwift practices really are.”
But anyway, the next point:
“Longer-term, we have a plan to block this kind of mid-event weight exploit so race results are not impacted by bad actors with ill intent. We are unable to go into details of these plans for obvious security reasons. Detecting game exploits is a never-ending battle, and we appreciate your help in finding this one.”
- Do you? Really?
- Longer term? 2 years is pretty long term as it is, and it is not exactly a difficult fix.
- I’ll help: IF: Event is in session, THEN: Any changes to rider profile are queued until either event has concluded or rider leaves the event. Forward this logic to your development team. You’re welcome.
So my last point, stop hiding behind Section X subsection Y to justify doing the wrong thing. There is no one here saying “yes, Zwift did the right thing” because its absolutely disgusting behaviour and only amounts to censorship. Maybe do the right thing instead of finding ways to justify acting in a way that can only be described as awful.
There are more points that come out of the above post, but I’ll pocket them for later (Unless I get banned for this, which seems quite likely).
