Members Only Ride: Sights and Sounds Tour: Watopia Figure 8

The Archives Clubs 1.0
21

I loved the no HUD view. It was so much more realistic when paired with the 1st person view. Much more like a real life group ride. I agree with removing the nameplates that hover above the rider as they distract from the concept of a clean UI. However, IRL, you can recognize who you are riding with based on visual cues like rider size, pedaling style, kit, face, etc. While some of this is possible in game, our avatars aren’t that good. So, could you put rider name on a bib on their back?

I’m not a racer so having a rear view isn’t important to me.

While the uncluttered raw view of the virtual world was awesome, I do prefer to have a way to see the basics of what I would have on my bike computer. Speed, distance, ride time, etc. ZC is the obvious solution for this. Giving us the option to config the fields on the dashboard page would emulate the most popular bike computers. The only problem with this approach is that I also use my phone for Discord and “Push to Talk” would cause a lot of app switching. I know the community has adopted Discord, but it’s one of my least favorite apps and I’d welcome a less cumbersome alternative.

Again, this is great stuff. I would use this mode on all my non-workout, group ride meetups!

Keep up the awesome work!

1 Like
22

Hi Wes, I’ll add my thanks for bringing us this experience. I very much enjoyed yesterday’s ride. On longer endurance rides and meet-ups I already routinely use view 7 (variable) to get a better view of the scenery, so I get the idea of wanting to see more of what is around me. In races I mainly use view 3 (first person) to get that feeling of being in the bunch. Going HUDless enhanced that and I’m lucky enough to have a 43" TV right in front of my face to fully appreciate the heightened sense of realism.

I wasn’t sure whether yesterday’s ride was intended to trial a new HUDless view or whether it was to discover what elements we value most. From what is being said, I’m assuming the former and, thinking about that, I’ve found it hard to succinctly express what I feel about removing the HUD completely. I guess that when it comes down to it, I value the data and information as another distraction from riding on a turbo trainer. As a bare minimum I’d want to know who is riding around me.

I’m most concerned about race organisers removing the HUD. I found myself disagreeing with a lot of what was said on discord: removing the HUD doesn’t make racing more like real life. IRL you have a sense of when you are pushed to the back of the bunch and a quick glance confirms that. You can see when the front of the bunch is surging and you get verbal warnings of attacks coming from the back. You can judge how big the gaps are. IRL you often know and recognise your opponents too - These are all things that are hard to do in game and the on screen data helps make up for the limitations.

I’m a back of the bunch B grader and often find myself having to decide things like “Do I try to catch those other dropped riders 30 seconds ahead, or do I drop back to the large C group behind and let them pull me though?”. Removing these tactical elements takes something away from the race experience.

Of course it wouldn’t be the end of the world - If race organisers removed the HUD, I guess I’d make more use of ZCA. I don’t have my phone on my bars as I sweat too much, but I’d probably mount an iPad on a stand to make it easier to tap the view buttons and select the rider list without getting dropped in the seconds that I looked behind me!
In musing on all this, I found myself finally thinking “How can the UI make it easier for me to know where I am in the bunch/race?”, rather than “Take it all away - I’d rather race on feel alone!”

Sorry for the slight negativity here. It masks the fact that I did like having a big wide view of Watopia and that there was a pro for every con that I’m expressing.

On balance though, I’d prefer to have the choice when to go HUDless and I suspect that it wouldn’t be my first choice for most of my Zwift rides.

1 Like
23

Hi

Here is my feedback from the ride!

When Wes was saying it was a free pace , i was interested in going to the front to experience the non HUD ride up tempo with some attacks! It was another way of zwifting, you need a lot more focus to the other avatars and be more alert for attacks because you don’t see the pre-warnings with the stats . I have enjoyed it as more realistic. As in real outdoor you don’t know the data from the other group riders. Knowing the course will give more advantage for sure. The CA was a kind of a cycling computer to catch some data but i was using my bike unit for stats and CA for the map. O yes for racing it looks great and a way more realistic to outdoor fore sure !! Great experience
When i’m racing i’m always in view 3 but without Hud view 3 was soooo awesome.
The sticky draft was a lot less sticky imo, do we had changes for this in the last update?
Once at the finish an hour later and the HUD pops up, it was a short overloaded data feeling.
Cheers
Stephan

3 Likes
24

That was a fun ride! I’m riding one day later using workout mode and I am stuck without HUD.

25

@Chris_Cowart7648 let me know if the HUD reappears after your workout is complete.

26

Hi Wes I ended (not finished) workout due to time. Started a new ride and no HUD appeared. Lmk if you need any other info. Thanks

27

Hi @Wes anything I can do to engage HUD? I have a USAC race on Wednesday morning. Thank you!

28

check the prefs.xml file and make sure you have this set to zero

<MINIMAL_UI>0</MINIMAL_UI>

Also joining then quitting another event could reset the bit for ya if it’s in a stuck state.

29

On the Apple TV app, a couple of event join/quits did reset it back to the HUD view. Thanks!

30

Great, thanks for letting me know. I’ll get an Apple TV bug filed for this internally. :ride_on:

31

I will second a number of things already said by others:

First off, I really enjoyed it. I hope this becomes an option we can select any time for any ride unilaterally

I personally would like it better with no nameplates at all.

For racing, I would be very interested to try racing (I am usually far at the back of D) with no UI, no nameplate, no map and see how it feels. I think it would be a lot of fun. It would be different from what we are used to by a lot, but I think it would add more “fun factor” to racing. It is kind of odd right now to race seeing the w/kg in real time of other people even far behind me or far ahead of me. It would most certainly change final sprints if one can’t see as well who is behind, but I don’t have a problem with that as it would impact all equally. It would be a different thing, not a bad thing.

Racing with nothing but some bib numbers and team jerseys would be something new and good, I think. I am usually sprinting for “not last”, so I can’t speak for those sprinting for “not second”.

As the first time using discord in Zwift, I enjoyed that (once I turned my mic on it was even better).

I rode mostly in the over the shoulder view, but swapping in and out of first person of course is fun as well. I would not lock the camera to first person, however.

Having no map or slope guide is a good change to as it makes us ride differently and more immersively paying attention to the terrain and other riders more than with the UI always telling us data on everything and everyone.

Having the option to turn off UI elements one at a time has been requested before… I think!

If I had to have one single UI element as the sole element remaining on screen, I would pick the little power graph at the bottom (or an even smaller version of that somewhere I could place on screen). I like for general fitness to see the colors of my power as I ride to keep in one zone or another for a time period in free riding.

I had done this previously a bit with the XML tag, but this was far better with a group of people all experiencing the same thing.

I I had the option to ride with nothing but a little power meter somewhere or a little power graph, that would be my preferred method or riding.

The only concern I have is how to give ride-ons with no UI. Maybe the Companion would have a new screen just showing the 6 riders closest by with big ride on buttons as the feature of that screen, so we could easily dole them out and still keep a clean UI in the main game screen.

p.s. I ride with a projector showing Zwift on a wall, so having no UI really made it seem like reality seeing the world and riders life size and un-cluttered. The virtual went away.

1 Like
32

If it helps with the debug, it didn’t happen to me on A4KTV. Sadly, as I’d much rather ride without it!

33

Hi,

I wasn’t able to particiapte, but I have a question: running Zwift with minimal UI “hack” makes the “Main menu” window and the turn signs unavailable (both in Companion and on screen).

During this ride, was the menu button (lower left corner) and the turn signs were present?

Regards,
Andras

34

I completely agree with Daren in this:

The name plates also helped me a lot to sense if I was in a group, whether it was stringed out, or if alone (giving some of the information you get IRL from a quick sideways glance or a brief look back).