Tried riding with one of the Halloween pace riders (Cosmic), and it was frustrating. Rider does not maintain constant power, and did at least 3x U-turns (!!!) over the course of an hour. That makes it impossible to maintain the multiplier and unlock the whole costume. Seriously, U turns?
You keep the costume pieces you already unlocked, but in order to unlock the next one you have to get the multiplier up to the previous level. Which means 1.5 hours of not losing the multiplier to unlock the full set. It’s just frustrating. I gave up after two attempts.
You also easily lose the pace partner because you can’t always see the beacon with all the oversized heads and because it’s not visible through the thumbs-up icons (icon is transparent to the world, but not to other markers). And these are popular rides, so it’s constantly raining thumbs.
I’m a big fan of the pace riders, but the halloween version is just rubbish.
I 100% agree with @Matthias_Hohenberger - this was only my second attempt at a “Pace Partner” ride and it was a disaster. Exactly as described above… Disappointing, looking forward to when it’s fixed.
Sucks if you’re at the bottom end of the spectrum too. With an ftp of 1.2 I have no chance. Sorry but it’s downright discriminatory. At least last year you could achieve by cycling the routes at your own pace. There should be something for everyone.
FYI: We were at the bottom of the climb when Cosmic started doing U-turns, no where close to the radio tower area. See attached photo from my ride, you can see where I quit in frustration at the bottom of the KOM. I believe Cosmic also did a U-Turn on the shorter climb before the bridge too.
The non-consistent riding of the Halloween pacer can be quite fun but the combination of having no brakes on Zwift and the pacer making sudden U-turns makes it practically impossible to stay in close proximity. The pacer made these U-turns on various moments during my ride. Not only on hills (which are much more difficult to start with if you want to keep pace). It’s also a shame that the costume does not stay on if you decide to ride away from the pacer. All the work done for nothing… I like some gamification but this feels a bit Sisyphean…
Agree, the ride I was on, on the Epic, Bot just stopped, everyone lost the pacer points. I commend zwift for trying to make it so it’s not just a timing thing and there is some gamification to it… After all, it is just a bit of fun. But it just isn’t good in its current form.
Even on the Waistband, Cosmic wasn’t doing anything like a constant pace yesterday. Plenty of group messages from the bunch, complaining about it, so it wasn’t just me—but I would be cruising along comfortably at X watts, then suddenly Cosmic would drop back anywhere from 10-18 meters behind, so I’d basically stop pedaling, then Cosmic would catch up and I’d be pacing along at X watts again, but Cosmic would lunge ahead and I’d have to ramp up to 450w+ to catch up, etc; no U-turns, but also wildly inconsistent pacing. Trying to acquire Cosmic’s outfit seemed like it would be a fun diversion, but turned out not to be so.
I had exactly the same issue yesterday after trying, for a second time, to ride with the Halloween pacer.
The pacer was varying the w/kg from 1.2 to 1.9 on the rolling jungle route making it practically impossible for me and others to stay with them long enough to get any sort of multiplier.
I was riding with the pacer as a warm up for an event, so just at rode off the front. I’ve now tried this pacer twice and for me it is broken and I’ll not bother trying again.
Nice concept, poor execution. The tresure hunt type system from last year was IMO significantly. better.
I Rode with Cosmic C and was able to get the full costume without ever accumulating more than 1.2 drops.
You have to complete the interval IE 1.0 - 1.2 etc and each time you do, you get another piece of the costume. I completed the 1.0 to 1.2 interval 3 times.
I couldn’t agree more with how irritating the Pace Partner feature is, and mine didn’t have any u-turns or anything.
Tonight was my first time trying pace partners in any way whatsoever, and you’d think it should be a fun incentive to unlock costumes. I can do a fairly steady 1.75w/kg or so but I can definitely also hit 2.5w/kg for bursts. So the Dino should be a nice fit for me. It seems like if I was alone on the road, about 140w or so would keep up properly. Except the problem is with so many people around one pace partner, I’m constantly getting stuck on other riders. Even getting to around 150-160w isn’t getting me unstuck. So I have to push 170-200w to get past them so I don’t fall too far behind the Dino. Which I can do without a problem for short periods. But that of course that ends up throwing me way past the Dino. And so I have to slow down to like 80w so I don’t pass the Dino.
It’s just constantly rubberbanding forward and back. And then the bot sometimes speeds ahead downhill, making it even harder to figure out what’s going to keep me steady with it. (Hint, nothing seems to). And then I’m basically filling up the bar for 1.2x and I fall behind for just a second or two, and it drops all the way down to zero.
Add to that the fact that all of these other people who I’m getting stuck on are just complaining that it’s too slow (they want to collect all the costumes* so they’re sandbagging the effing pace partner even) and it’s just not fun, and in fact it made me quit my ride at 45 minutes instead of the 90 minutes I planned on doing because I’m too irritated to continue.
I don’t do races, but uhhhh… .if people go to that length for a damn halloween costume incentive, then I understand why people say races on Zwift are miserable.
*Also, whose bright idea was it to have a different costume for every level of rider, when anyone with half a brain could predict that people would want to collect them all and the fast riders would then make it miserable for us slower riders?
Seriously, this has been the absolute most unfun experience I’ve had in Zwift, and the fact it happened during what’s supposed to be a fun little holiday perk makes it even more ironic.
It was the same yesterday with Delta Daring, doing u-turns. I spotted it first because distance increased and suddenly I was out of multiplier range. Afterwards I stayed behind and saw the U-turns.
I must agree we tried the Halloween Pace Partners and it was very disappointing. My daughter was very exited to try to get the Halloween costume but after 20minuites completely gave up.
Halloween on Zwift used to be fun but now that they try and satisfy the need needs of the 1% of people complaining about these fun things they made it worse for 99% of the community.
What do you mean that they have satisfied those who complain about the fun holiday themes and tricks? Because it is a choice to follow the bots or not?
Where’s the decorations, the selectable costume! Just a really bad sub game that was no fun what so EVER! This is the worst Zwift Hallowe’en party since … we’ll ever!
Last year was so awesome and the treasure hunt was great!
