But haven’t things changed since the OG post? Tweaks and whatnot? I just want to know what those fine changes are.
OG post is helpful, though.
Pretty much there were small changes…to achieve what was posted in that announcement.
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My favorite part about discussions online are when people take some minor point in a post to focus on and completely miss the actual message. Zone 2, zone 3, zone 4, whatever. The point is that current typical races severely lack any kind of tactics or dynamic racing and changes to the pack dynamics that enable more robust races is a great thing for everyone.
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I think you must be doing something very wrong. I (also 79 kg) just rode 45 minutes with Coco in Makuri who rides at 2.6 W/kg and I only had to average 2.0 for the whole ride. On the one climb up the rooftop I had to do 2.7 (makes sense with the dynamic pacing) and then on the descent back down, I only had to do 1.2
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Perfect example. Thanks for the support. My point is that there’s something wrong with the robopacers. If you join a 2.2 watt per kilogram ride and wind up at 2.5, there is something wrong. If you join a 2.6 watt per kilogram ride and average 2.0 there is something wrong.
Don’t forget that your weight in relation to the RP has a very large bearing on this.
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I think you are misinterpreting what the ride is. It’s not a 2.6 w/kg ride, it’s a pace partner (sorry, robopacer…) doing 2.6 (dynamic pacing aside). I choose to sit at the back and minimize my watts. I could just as easily have chosen to ride 2.6 at the front.
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It largely has not changed from the original description up top in this post here. The PD4 implementation was close, but we felt it came up short, so the changes we’re doing for PD4.1 are designed to provide less slingshotting and churn, some draft changes, and overall churn reduction in the pack.
“Small tweaks” are generally something like (and I’m making this up just for an example) changing the effect of headwind on the rider when surrounded by a number of riders by .01 or .1, reducing draft cone size by .025m, etc. Our changes are actually super small numbers tweaks guided by the main goals David set out in the original post, all coming together to produce the overall feeling of riding in the packs on Zwift.
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Okay, appreciated, thank you! Will refer to OP.
I think this makes a lot of sense.
And even thought I know we’re trying to get it perfect before it goes live, it might even make sense to continue monitoring it and even making more small tweaks after it’s live.
Anything to make riding and racing more realistic, dynamic, and fun gets my vote.
Thanks again for all your hard work!!
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We’ll always be watching, even after launch. “Perfect” is a hard one to nail in this sense because it’s so subjective from person to person depending on their expectations coming into a race or ride how Zwift should feel relative to some factor and also the type of rider they are.
As someone that was always better at riding breakaways than winning bunch sprints, perfect pack dynamics for me means keeping the pack off my tail as long and easily as possible. But that’s far from perfect for people that like to sprint or need to conserve their energy in the back.
It may sound trite, but the best thing to indicate if pack dynamics changes are good is what I’ve been thinking is a “line of best fit,” which is to say that we’ve landed on mostly positive feedback with the most number of folks possible. A big indication we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled for is general sentiment around the feeling of how riding in the pack on Zwift is across different sources and groups.
I’m not saying this to shut any conversation down, more so that I’m finding myself pausing at the word “perfect” and reflecting on how we get to that mythical state for the vast riding styles and differences in Zwifter needs.
Really appreciate the feedback we’ve gotten on this so far, and you all have been immensely helpful. Thank you.
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Yes, I understand. I’ve ridden with Maria bot probably a hundred times and know how it normally reacts to inclines and declines.
I thought there may be some comments as 4.1 is now live in Makuri.
Anyhow, I rode behind Yumi Pacer Bot on Turf n Surf today and here’s my impressions.
Overall, I thought it was good. Closer to a real world feel.
My average power after just over an hour ride was maybe 5-10 watts lower than I expected compared to previous Yumi rides.
It felt a little easier if I stayed in the draft, although the group was never bigger than 9, so I’d like to experience riding in a bigger group to confirm this.
It didn’t feel like people were flying off the front, maybe just easing ahead, more noticeably on the climbs.
If I lost concentration and drifted off the back it felt like I had to work to get back on, but it was quite possible to close the gap and what I’d expect if I was riding outside.
Group stayed together well on flat and downhill sections.
The 2 climbs felt noticeably harder. I had to put a fair bit of work in to stay with the group and Yumi seemed to drop back a little and surge at times, which made it a little harder to hold position.
I was going to move up and ride with Jacques, but decided to save that for another day.
Overall feeling was Yumi felt a bit harder, but a more realistic ride.
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I experienced the exact same with Coco, particularly at the base of climbs.
Everyone around mentioned and noticed it as well; so something is definitely wonky at the bottom of larger hills. I tried watching Coco from spectator at times, but saw nothing out of the ordinary power wise.
But it was… extremely apparent.
Our blob would hold quite steady, around her, and then seconds later she’d be 10+ meters ahead of us out of nowhere… very peculiar.
It was only at those bases of climbs things produced issues though; and was definitely an issue with the pace partners.
Large group ride around Makuri 40 this morning felt fine; it was very apparent how short the draft out the rear of the packs are nowadays; seems like one or two bike lengths and there’s nothing there anymore, which did “feel” weird to me.
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That does sound strange. There is no kind of special behavior at the bottom of hills. We haven’t heard such reports from races or group rides 
If someone can get a recording of such phenomena we appreciate.
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I wonder if going into the climb at lower speed is a factor in this perceived difference
There are a few things to consider now when talking about Robo Pacers:
- If you are near the front of the group in the beginning of a climb, there is no “slingshot” effect making the start of the climb feel harder perhaps.
- if you are closer to the back and are not alert, you might loose draft easier, if (or when) the pace increases, because of the new draft behavior.
- the new dynamics also tend to string out the packs a bit more, so in smaller pace groups you might have reduced draft at times.
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if only the video recording feature was allowed on CPUs that can totally handle it 
yeah; I didn’t ride very long last night, just an hour, but once others started talking about it too I started paying closer attention.
I don’t know if it was just well timed, but it was almost like what happened a few months ago where the bots would plow through blobs; not quite as extreme, but very reminiscent of the same thing. I didn’t sit around long enough on spectator to just make sure, but when I was watching things … seemed normal.
I didn’t ride with any others, just Coco, and it could be one of those one-off weird random occurrences.
But since a few people mentioned it, I figured it might be worth someone looking into to spot any odd jumps in speed or the like.
I know this is minorly anecdotal and probably not the most accurate to go off of, but just to have on record:
it was Neokyo All Nighter; the route with that rooftop climb.
Right before the climb of the rooftop, which is flat, I had a bump in speed from 18.7 to 21.9mph on the first lap.
Second lap, same place, we again went from 19.3 on the flat, up to 22.4, again this is before the climb even begins.
I don’t know if this will be super evident, but here’s a screen grab of the speed from Garmin.
This section is flat; there should be zero reason for a speed to change.
One lap seems like a fluke; but two laps, and others in game mentioning it; figured it’s worth bringing up.
Which CPU do you have? I don’t think the rollout is complete even for the CPUs they think can handle it. If you have one of the CPUs mentioned in the linked comment you will probably get it eventually.
I spectated Coco the other day when you turned PD 4.1 ON in Makuri and i think i noticed the same weirdness that is talked about.
My feeling was that Robopacers are on PD4.0 and riders around are on 4.1.
Robopacer was never stoped from passing a rider with higher watts it would slingshot to the front.
Could it be that the pacers have there own PD setting?