I find it would be helpful to have an option to turn off steering in the game settings. We can turn off other features of the play controllers, like virtual shifting, but no option to disable steering today. I want to retain play controllers for game control and virtual shifting in particular, but disable steering.
Steering as implemented today can be a detriment in some race settings and interfere with draft behavior in groups. This is especially evident in the WTRL TTT events when in mixed teams - some team members with steering and some without. It seems very hard to keep the two setups interacting efficiently. Steering riders seem to successfully draft steering riders, and non-steering riders draft other non-steering riders well, but both groups seem to have different ‘tracks’ within the lane and can’t seem to share them, hampering draft. Getting non-steering riders to be able to draft a rider with steering seems very hard, even when everyone is paying attention and collaborating as we do in a TTT.
In other general races, I’ve found it hard to collaborate with non-steering riders in breakaways too. Same sort of issues - we appear to be on different tracks within the lane, regardless of any adjustments I make (or not touching the steering hoping it autosteers like default).
Being able to turn off steering would hopefully provide a way to return to prior behavior, while still retaining other very useful functions on the play controllers.
Hi @RobS, welcome back to Forums. It’s Juan here from Zwift. I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts here.
Feedback from Zwifters like you is always helpful in developing improvements to all aspects of the gaming experience. I hold in high regard your enthusiasm for fair play about using Zwift Play in certain circumstances, such as racing.
I’ll share your comments with the most appropriate team for notes along with @Chris_Holton’s comments. Thanks for being part of our community.
I think this one is a pretty big deal because it causes huge issues in TTTs. Even in events where steering and braking is turned off, riders using Zwift Play seem to line up on a different track than non-Play users. ZRL starts very soon and this is going to hamper users of Zwift Play on the week 1 TTT. I am to the point of considering uninstalling my Play and going back to manual shifting for ZRL TTTs.
Hey! I want to bring this topic on again. It can’t be wished by Zwift that I buy the Zwift play to have all the functions and that I have to deactivate them completely and using the click again in TTT races because my team mates without steering can’t draft me.
Is it functionally so hard to let us deactivate steering in the settings but still using the play controllers for virtual shifting? This is a real bummer at the moment.
My view of this is a bit different…i agree that in settings there should be the option to turn off steering.
What my suggestion is to make non-steering riders follow the draft of steering riders and if the non-steering rider has 0 draft move him back to middle after 10seconds.
This would fix TTT and every other problem and complain about steering being pay to buy for win.
The way it works currently was really sad in my race this morning. There’s a pack of 20 and I see two guys off to the side out of the draft, not overtaking or anything, just cruising alongside us. Guess what… no steering. It was like they weren’t in our race, just watching from outside the window.
I’m with you, Dejan. Autosteer needs to be fixed. This is increasingly impacting race behavior (inside and outside the TTT) as more riders adopt platforms with steering like the Zwift Ride…It really does feel like a ‘pay to play’ scenario in the upper category races now.
I wish I understood what the current behavior is attempting to do so I could convey the issue clearly in a bug report. Last TTT I kept my play controllers off but was joined by a teammate with a Zwift Ride, so he had them on for shifting. My avatar would actively autosteer out of his draft (with a 2-4m gap, and no lapping of wheels) - he would have to watch where my position was reported and adjust constantly… it’s almost like autosteer doesn’t account for riders that aren’t in autosteer mode at that point in time (they’ve touched steering in the last 10 sec or whatever), but that doesn’t explain the ‘steering guys on the left’ vs ‘non-steering riders grouped on the right’ issue we see.
Steering rider will follow the draft of Steering rider
Steering rider will follow the draft of NO-Steering rider
NO-Steering rider will NOT Follow the draft of Steering rider
NO-Steering rider needs more space to pass a rider and will hit the wind sooner.
So when a rider with steering will move from the middle of the course the only riders that will follow him will be steering riders. NO-Steering will be the other group more in the middle of the road.
The big problem is for everyone that use Zwift Play for Virtual Shifting as they can’t turn OFF Steering.
I also don’t like when steering riders can go through avatars and not around like NO-Sterring riders.
This was from thursday’s TTT. my teammates all have steering, i don’t. I had to quit because it wasn’t possible to get draft despite my (very experienced) team doing their best to take care of me
that’s me out there on the left trying to move up from last place to the wheel i was supposed to be on after being unable to hold the draft. a couple times i hit 11wkg just trying to follow guys doing 4wkg
this is my power graph from the TTT up until the point i got too salty to keep riding, all stuck last wheel except for the smooth section in the middle, which was my turn on the front
I did initially ask WTRL to consider this. Martin sent me a thoughtful reply, which I’ll summarize as: there are plenty of teams that now try to leverage steering to improve their performance, and they’d like to continue to encourage that in the TTT. It’s really only an issue with mixed teams/hardware, and I honestly don’t see why we shouldn’t have the option to turn it off…
The workaround that is available today is to buy a ‘click’ and turn the play controllers off. Not ideal, but I mention it for those that want a solution today instead of never…
The other thing that Zwift could do is fix the draft-seeking behavior of riders without steering. I don’t think they’ve ever responded to repeated queries like this so I still have no idea whether it’s intentional or not.
I’ve found a quasi work around because I’ve been having this issue for TTT’s where I use the Zwift Ride and need the virtual shifting but have teammates that don’t have steering and as a result don’t smoothly follow my avatar when I have steering enabled. So this is what I did and it seems to have worked. Turn on zwift, pair bike and controllers. Start a free ride. Since the controllers are paired the gear ratio shows up on your screen (it doesn’t if you start riding without pairing the controller). I then turned off the controllers and then opened the pairing screen. The controllers aren’t connected because they are off. I exit the pairing screen. Gear ratio is still visible on screen but handlebars aren’t beside my name indicating that steering is disabled. I turn the controllers back on but don’t open the pairing screen. For some reason the shifting has reconnected but the steering hasn’t. Do not open the pairing screen again or the steering will reconnect. Also of note my controllers won’t actually both turn off when the bike is paired but they do reboot if you hold the power down like you are turning them off. Seems like the key is opening and closing the pairing screen when the controllers are in that few second rebooting state. Hope that works for you as well
