There are certainly no ethical issues with adjusting the power at the back to stay in position.
I guess itâs all a moot point from now on anyway as microbursting isnât going to be able to be used to move up through the pack.
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@DavidP When is full release planned? Rode with Genie last two days in Makuri only a few riders on both occasions but didnât find any issues. With dynamics I feel constant monitoring / tweaking in the background is the best way forward rather than major changes in a shorter time frame.
Microbursting is also used in the absence of draft, such as for bridging gaps. I imagine PD4 will have no effect on that, but if it moves the needle a little bit toward better design that sounds like a positive development.
There was a comment earlier that full draft in the pack is more of a benefit than super tuck, riding with Coco just now I tried coasting in the pack on a steep downhill and fell through the back of the pack almost immediately.
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I think where the benefit in the pack is that when you get a draft bonus, itâs not based on the speed of the rider in front of you, or even the pack in general, but rather your own individual speed, as if the rider in front of you were going the same speed. Essentially, a Watt bonus is applied for the draft from what Iâve been able to gather (based on Sauce data, and reading into the context of some of the discussions across the forums). So micro bursting to get a speed above pack speed gives you extra watt bonuses above what the rest of the pack. Thatâs the issue with PD3. Micro bursting in the wind is more a mental game than an actual exploit.
i ride sometimes as low as 60rpm average on 10% TD and i havenât had any problems
Maybe there is something else going on then. It just made sense to me that this could affect how riders could perceive the new PD differently based on their riding style and setup.
Why would you break IRL when you have a momentum going on? Thatâs literally the definition of bad racing and auto braking is forcing that on us right now. If fixing funky pack dynamics require Zwift to force auto-braking on us, I am sorry but I donât want it. There is nothing natural about auto braking, in game or IRL.
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How does PD4 work when someone is using a draft power up? Does it double the double draft? Does auto break still apply?
Zwift guys, instead of just flashing our power numbers red (which isnât even happening yet) please add a separate field that flashes in red the wattage penalty being applied. I think zwift users would appreciate seeing a big red â-97wâ on their screen when auto braking occurs.
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Itâs simple, to not crash into the person in front of you. You either brake, or move into the wind. Sometimes you canât move into the wind, and IRL people donât move out of your way when trying to move up from the rear.
Itâd be great to keep your momentum IRL, but realistically the only way to do that is with a clear path ahead.
Lol dude. If you are coming up on a rider with enough of a speed difference to be concerned that you might crash into them, your intentions can not be anything other than slingshot them. If you are not going to slingshot, there is absolutely no reason to surge. So this hypothetical IRL scenario you describe just doesnât exist. No one who knows racing would surge up to speed behind a rider only to waste energy. Auto braking is waste of energy and thatâs not how anything works IRL. Letâs stop pretending like PD4 is anything closer to IRL pack dynamics and how people ride in packs than PD3. Itâs a different interpretation, which I think is just as unrealistic as the one it replaces. Zwift is not meant to be and will never be a simulation of IRL racing.
We are used to freewheel or soft pedal to adjust speed, but now if we do that, we get the penalty of being auto braked in addition. So if we do what feels natural and what we would do IRL, Zwift interferes with it and makes the natural end up being something unnatural and irritating.
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⌠perhaps youâre right about braking in races. Or perhaps the races youâve been in just arenât that aggressive/fast to were you may actually need to hit your brakes to slow down for corners, account for the accordion effect of trying to cover attacks but not wanting to be on the front, etc.
Auto braking in Zwift is a bandaid, for sure. What itâs doing is stopping people from a sling-shot through the pack for free. Does PD5 need to revamp pack flow? Of course. In the meantime, the bandaid is a good bandaid.
Zwift should have never mentioned the word breaking because racers see that as negative energy.
Somehow they need to moderate the speed when you generate less power than needed to pass the rider in front of you.
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Agreed 100%
This moderation is applied even if you are able to handle the breaking yourself or not.
You raise a good point. The old âdouble edge swordâ.
If we wouldnât have revealed the details, we would be accused of lack of transparency and poor communication, but probably reach a solution that would be praised in the end because people would assume it would be some magic fix.
On the other hand, revealing it, raises quite some stigma around the braking solution for some 
Like Iâve said before, if we want to solve the problem of excessive speed of groups, we need to find a solution that makes overtaking harder than it was before, which essentially was like no one was in front of you, you would just âflyâ to the front.
Until there are consequences when collisions occur in game, steering for all and manual braking, I believe this is the best we can get at the moment.
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Ultimately, we have to adapt to how you create the PD in Zwift. I must know when Iâm auto-braked / moderated and how to prevent it. It is of course nothing like IRL since we are missing some important parts of riding a bike.
I hope you understand that my criticism is only meant to pinpoint weaknesses and room for improvement in the PD. It is hard to come across when you have a whole choir sing louder than I can (and accusing me of âmicro burstingâ or something)