I searched all topics and can’t believe this apparently hasn’t been requested yet, something I thought should be a (simple) game feature, already.
Here’s the logic:
When Zwift is randomising a PowerUp, if you don’t actually get one, you get “compensated” with XP points (+10, I believe). So why not make it so that: if you get one that you don’t want to or can’t use (or are simply greedy for XP), then you at least get awarded some XP when you send it to the bin? (you would have anyway if the randomiser did it)
My only thought against it is that people could in fact get greedy and never use power-ups and bank the XP but then make it a limit of, say, 5 “rejected” (now “converted”) power-ups per day or something?
Would love to hear people’s thoughts on this matter… and get those votes in!
Little reward, yes, but better than nothing when you don’t have a use for it, wouldn’t you say? Would help with a certain frustration when you’re riding solo up Mont Ventoux and get an Aero or Draft PowerUp in one of those intermediate checkpoints, so in practice it would be as if you had gotten no bonus, with the corresponding +10 in XP.
This is like one line of code: so easy for Zwift to implement if they want.
I actually ride a time trial bike a lot of the time specifically so I get XP at the banners rather than useless power-ups: I don’t want to use power-ups during solo training anyway.
We are talking about maybe 50XP that you loose in a hour ride and that is on a very flat route. You can get 60XP by just doing an extra 3km. And the 3km will make you stronger.
Gerrie, that line of code would look like below (pseudo-code)
From the existing handling block:
user_power_up = random_power_up()
if user_power_up = “Small Bonus”
then go_small_bonus()
Add this piece of cake, I mean code:
If user bins power-up
then go_small_bonus()
At least Daniel Connelly understands me, this isn’t about “getting XP rich” all of a sudden, just something that makes (complete) sense!
Daniel, I didn’t know the TT bike would bin all your power ups for you. Ok, just read up on power-ups on here: https:// zwift. com/news/13399-using-powerups:
<< If you’re in the middle of a structured workout or on a TT bike, the only PowerUps you’re eligible for are the Small and Large Bonuses. >>
This made me understand I was slightly wrong (in the facts, not the “approach”+suggestion); since Zwift activates those Small Bonus (+10XP) and Large Bonus (+250XP) PowerUps straight away, you never really get to see them (and can’t even choose to bin them, very interesting they make that decision for you).
Before reading this page today, I thought what happened was no PowerUp had been assigned and a compensation would take place. I never saw +250 being given. This kills a bit of my logic (based on the wrong facts), but still think trading binned PowerUps for XP would be not only fair, but trivial to implement as well.
Presumably there is some call to award XP, which is called when you randomly get the “+”. I don’t know in what language Zwift is written, but the call would be something like:
rewardXP(10, “”)
where “” in this context is an optional message.
So when, with the companion app, the user discards a power-up, make this call. Instead of discarding the power-up it converts the power-up to a “+”.
Okay, maybe it could be 2 lines of code:
removePowerUp(); <— already there
addPowerUp(plusPowerUp); <---- added
As I said, I have no idea how the code is written, but this is very simple.
ZwiftInsider also says 250 points for the large “+” power-up. It has a 1% chance of being awarded, they say, which corresponds to an expectation value of 2.5 points. The standard “+” has a 29% chance of being awarded, corresponded to an expectation value of 2.9 points. So over time, around 54% of your points will come from small “+”, 46% for big “+”.
Great idea. Often if I am riding on my own and just easy spinning, the power ups don’t really make a difference, so I would happily bin them for a little XP (as opposed to switching to the TT bike).
Am I the only one watching this thread to see how the one line of code covers off:
Updating the UI to include a “Bin power up” button
Updating the UI “Bin power up” button to be enabled/disabled at the right time.
Updating the UI Power Up status when the “Bin power up” is pressed.
Optionally, updating the companion app to include a “Bin power up” button
Optionally, the key board short cuts to include a “Bin power up” button
Then there’s the unit tests…
Then dealing with the complaints that the Bin Powerup button is too close to the actual power up button on the UI and people keep accidentally hitting it instead of the power up when launching a sprint at the end of a race.
TBH, this is decent suggestion. But its not a trivial one line change. IMHO I’d much rather dev effort spent on fixing the fence etc.
Hey Tim, there is a button to bin the power-ups already!! In my companion app it’s at the leftmost side of the bar, so you don’t even have to scroll sideways to see it.
If you read my feature request text carefully, it wouldn’t make sense without the feature already being there - since my text read “when you send it to the bin”.
My only request here is that you get XP for that action - much like you would (get XP) if you had gotten one of those + Power-ups that increase the XP automatically for you!
Hope you can agree and upvote - it is a “one line” change. Cool that you know about TDD.
XP is already “not earned” by getting it randomly as a Power-up, so this is the same as having gotten it by luck of the draw, and we could be talking like 10 points here, it’s just about being “fair”.
The feature request is asking to speed up the process of getting XP points vs the average. That’s not “fair” to everyone who has put in the hours accumulating XP the normal way.
I think it’s fair since “everyone” can choose to not use Power-ups and bank the XP instead, again, you can’t even argue against the fact that it is already happening with the random power-ups you get; Ole just shared they got a 250XP last week, after more than 2 years, I never got one, is that also “fair” to you?
