Interesting!
It goes without saying that even if one has the relevant tech skills and the relevant explanation of methodology, one would still need to invest significant time understanding why certain seemingly anomalous outcomes occur. And I guess ZHW doesn’t want to invest the time, even if they have enough folk there who could get to grips with things.
The account is level 35. On Zwift Power it has 10 events 5 races. 4 wins in B (510), mid pack 22/35 in Advanced.
If they can’t solve it with that data then 
Maybe the developers left a “rand()” function live in the production version having forgotten to deactivate it after testing. 
Guess they are all Big Spinning… those prices are more attractive to a lot than glasses, shoes, helmet and a kit. Dont know if it is that smart to do these events at the same time.
Yes they said it was something they didn’t understand and wanted to try to fix.
Its a function of how Zwift approaches development in general. If they wanted to improve racing, they should not have just slapped together a racing score and sent it. You look at how everything works together to create a coherent experience. Look at pack dynamics, race organizer tools, the UI/UX, event calendar AND racing score all together. Come up with a vision that combines all these moving parts, set up a robust test environment with real people, and start iterating (and they have plenty of examples from successful products they could have mimicked). Instead, we got whatever this. Some of this is chicken and egg tho… Zwift would probably defend this approach as the number of people racing doesn’t lead one to conclude that its worthy of development time. I’d argue that racing on Zwift has been consistently bad for a while that its no surprise the numbers aren’t great when compared against the user base. Then again, I look at their approach to the UI, and maybe they are just keeping things together with duct tape, glue, and crossed fingers.
Here’s a good example of why using only 5 minute power to establish ZRS ranking is stupid:
WTAF? I get it that you all think we need to be using some other scoring system or some such. I believe if ZHQ would just pay attention to this kind of minutia we wouldn’t need to even have the conversation. There needs to be some weight given for sprinting. In most races on Zwift it comes down to the sprint and not using some semblance of score to 1 or 2 minute power stresses the limits of credulity.
Simply using 86Kg and 338W for 5mins, ZWIFT ZRS v3 by VirtuSlo says their 100% seed score is 416.
The 85% seed score being the floor has to go and be replaced by the floor being 100% seed score, it’s being abused by so many and allowing so many to race a pen lower than 90 day ability shows.
That’s as may be, there is no way on God’s Green that this guy belongs in the C pen. With a sprint like that, it’s no wonder he won the series this morning.
put him up hill, he go out the back. Do better next you do full right up.
No, it’s really not.
It’s yet another example of why there is no need for the floor to be so far below seed - something that was needed when sprint power was included in the seed formula.
This person is clearly capable of outperforming his seed score, hence his score should be higher than his seed.
His seed score, going by that weight and 5 minute power, is 416. The problem is that his power would only put him at 354 with the current floor setup.
You add in sprint power then people without a sprint get a insane advantage - we had A+ endurance riders with scores hundreds of points lower than C grade sprinters with the original seed formula.
That’s pretty laughable, Tom. I’m one of those riders with no sprint and oddly I have no recollection of any kind of advantage over sprinters in any race, let alone an insane advantage. I’m not an A+ rider but I can say that when ZRS was first introduced, I went from having no chance at all in B pen races to being in the mix for the entire race. And the races had a cohesive peloton for most of the event. I wasn’t riding away from the pack and the sprinters weren’t winning every race.
Granted, I’ve been seeing the major part of the peloton keeping together but the sprinters always ride away from the pack with 500m to go. The guy I referenced above, sat in for each of the races then blasted away from the pack with his explosive sprint. 15 second power of 13.2w/kg should be well beyond the capabilities of anyone with a ZRS between 400 and 500. That talent needs to be accounted for just like endurance talent. Like I said, in most Zwift races, sprinting counts for more than being a Diesel (like me).
Translation to American English, please. I have not the pleasure of understanding your statement.
Laughable? 100% factual.
Pace group C riders with a big sprint had V1 seed scores in the mid 600s. There were A+ riders with scores in the mid 400s. Maybe you just didn’t race against them.
It’s because seed V1 was designed on your expected performance on flat courses, and it made for competitive racing on flat courses. But on a course that wasn’t flat the scores in no way match the expected performance. It’s why they moved the floor to below seed, because people who had recorded a sprint effort were clearly unable to perform at a level matching their seed score if the course wasn’t flat.
The point of results movement is to account for any race winning ability that the seed score doesn’t.
The problem you’re seeing is there, you’re not imagining it. The solution you’re proposing has been tried and it failed.
E=mc2 is that better for you?
Factual implies something based upon incontrovertible evidence. I don’t believe that’s the case here. As we’re seeing here there is much discussion about solutions that are not going to be implemented: vELO, etc. Neither is my suggestion: some form of weighting to shorter power. I know this: In any kind of punchy short effort, I get dropped. If we have either long flat or long climb I can manage to hang. Without giving the short power some level of attention in ZRS, it’s always going to be this way.
I’m not suggesting going back to 30 second short power (that was way less than optimal) but I’m pretty sure if there was some weight given to 1-2 minute power as well as longer like 10-15 minute, we’d get some balance back to racing. This is better than CE by far, IMHO, but it is not as good as it could be. Remember, most Zwift races are won with short power in the punchy little hills and flat sprints. Ignoring it results in a rider with a ZRS of 394 with serious A level short power, a racing ranking score of 168 and Zpoints of nearly 8300. This defies common sense and is easily remedied without completely overhauling the entire racing program. That’s my take and while it’s not factual, I’m pretty sure it’s the easiest fix to this problem. It would also take care of the little sandbagging problem because there’s one less place to hide.
Nope, that makes even less sense than most of your posts. 
One of the things to remember here: This forum is populated by a very small subset of Zwift users. I imagine it’s on the order of <1.0%. None of my IRL friends ever go on here and only a two or three of my virtuals, out of a coupla hundred admit to trolling these halls. That may be why we get no traction with ZHQ with our griping and “suggestions”. Ask around. I’ll bet we all have the same level of forum participation from our friends and acquaintances.
Can confirm this. My beta test ZRS was 662 as a C cat rider with a sprint. At the moment my ZRS Seed is 440.
As a no-sprint guy, I had a similar (inverted) experience. Raced with Petit KOM, got away with 4 guys just like me.
