Don’t think so, the earlier ride has results properly and also had all riders visible 
This was the earlier one which does have results: ZwiftPower - Zwift Pack Dynamics v4.4 Test Race!
If the cats start with a delay, it will not be fair to compare the As with the Bs, or? I will be like the chase races.
Correct - I’d be just comparing the Bs, not different cats.
None of the other Cats were visible in the 1pmCST and 5pmCST races.
Just did the evening race, A category. I’ll preface this by saying we had a very small group - maybe 8 to start, which then got whittled down. This was actually good because it was much easier to see what was going on. Everything was updated, I’m on a pretty good rig, 1 Gbps connection (wired). Thoughts:
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Overall it was bad. Feels like an enormous step backwards. Initially I thought the autobrake might be to blame, but something is way more screwed up. At times, it was as if getting the wheel in front of me was like trying to push two opposing magnets together. @DavidP I tried to “trust” the draft, but would immediately start getting dropped if I did anything less than nearly equal the w/kg of the rider in front of me. I know this because the “Close the gap” warning would be popping up and the meters would start ticking up.
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The “wheel tracking logic” seems broken. I would see “Close the gap” cycle through different “gaps” but would sometimes pick the wrong one - ie, I had a rider directly in front of me, but it was saying close the gap +5m.
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Speeds are still way too high. We averaged 26 mph through the flat portion of Makuri, maybe doing 3.5 w/kg average. Our group was down to 5 or 6 at that point.
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Connected to point #3 - bringing back attempted breaks was far too easy. At one point two riders from the same team rolled off the front and were doing 5 - 7 w/kg. We were able to bring them back doing less w/kg, in part because we had a much larger rider who was doing like 380w at maybe 4 w/kg. That would not happen IRL.
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For whatever reason I didn’t really see the autobrake pop up much, but red numbers on a blue background ain’t it.
@DavidP some suggestions:
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I said this in the previous thread and got shot down, but trying to bring down group speed through an autobrake is probably not going to work, at least not without breaking lots of other stuff. This seems echoed in part by others’ frustrations. I’ll say it till I’m blue in the face, but it should take far more work for an individual or a group to average 26 mph. For a very small group (like we had tonight) doing modest w/kg to roll 26 mph on the flat portion of Makuri (with minimal churn) is evidence enough. Steepen the Cda curve to look more realistic and you fix a bunch of these issues.
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Insight into how Zwift looks for wheels in a draft would be helpful and (connected to point #2) the mechanics need to be far more forgiving.
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@gloscherrybomb I’m an IRL cat 1 and have raced in every kind of event. Even in the gnarliest races with lots of $$$ on the line (and “real” pros), it was easier to hold wheels than in Zwift. I disagree that Zwift can’t create a dynamic environment in shorter events, but they need to modify some elements that, from what I gather, are 100% off the table.
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[quote=“Ned Bowen [DRAFT] 
, post:146, topic:596602, full:true, username:Edward_Bowen”]
None of the other Cats were visible in the 1pmCST and 5pmCST races.
[/quote]
Oh weird, so in one spot it says “all cats visible” in the other spot it says they aren’t… Either way, they are configured the same way so I would expect results in both.
So I raced the 7pm cut race in C. I’m a high C more of a punchier than a sprinter. Made the breaks and was in front group all race. Had sauce running to see how draft correlated with auto break.
4 rhino guys had a coordinate dig early on, got away and stayed away for a while, felt like it required a bit of effort to get them back.
Later on, maybe 25km in myself and 2 others got away on a climb and held away even on the descent and I’m only 70kg. I eased off Bon the end as it was never going to stay away.
Was attritional ended up stringing out from 1km to go and not the regular sprint finish.
For me the race was no harder overall than a “regular” race. The main difference that I enjoyed was it was overall hard. Rather than an effort over a hill then everyone bumbling along. Effort, chill, sprint. You needed to be alert and on the pedals most of the time like IRL racing.
Didn’t have too much auto braking and only a couple times when I was not happy with it. Line was stringing out and I was closing to 4th wheel. As I got nearer, eased and got braked.
I’ve been reading the comments on Reddit and the one that summed it up best was it was like a spring classic with a cross wind.
Maybe I’m just crap at drafting all race then sprinting but for me this race was a way better experience.
My overall WKG was no different to any other race. Maybe even a little lower.
I guess those that are really good at drafting then sprint won’t like this dynamic. Those that are better suited to riding hard all race will love it.
For me it was more like IRL Crit or even CX where you don’t dare let off the pedals too much.
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We’re saying the same thing.
(also I’m in the UK - our cats are not at all comparable).
Interesting!
I’m not saying it is wrong, it is just different. If this is more like IRL, great! It just means that a lot of riders are not as competitive as they were and the category metrics have to change.
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I did the 1pm CST A race and the 5pm CST B race.
The biggest difference I could feel for the draft was related to the density of riders around you. With lots of other avatars around like near the front of the pack, backing off and maybe getting a little bit of braking did not feel punishing and it was actually easier to keep in position.
As soon as you started trailing off the back with other riders all 3-4 m apart, things became much more difficult. Previously, if you were in the middle of the string behind the bunch (the string being all the riders not tucked in tight near the front), you could put in a reasonably hard effort (similar to an effort that would stretch the bunch at the front), then pedal easy to make the extra speed created carry you forward to the back of the tight bunch. With PD v4.4, if you try that method, as soon as you back off pedaling the extra speed you created will be removed by autobraking the first rider you try to pass. Making everything harder than it would have been stretching the group at the front.
You have to either punch harder, so you are over the 3kph difference, or you have to keep on increasing your power slowly, so you never drop below your 10s average power. In the B race with 30 people, I could manage this, but not in the A race with 60 where the string never settled into a tight group.
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I think the last condition is redundant. You can’t be both below and above your 10 sec average power, right?
Questions:
- if you are holding steady power you should NEVER be auto-braked as you run up on slower rider(s)?
- is auto-braking triggered differently if you have a clear path left/right of the rider immediately in front? In other words, when you are on the outer edge of the group or the group is strung out single or double-file maybe you should never be auto-braked (because you have a path to pass)
- is the draft threshold a proxy for how many riders you have in front of you or does the client know this specifically?
- how does the system determine which rider to auto-brake to? Could you be auto-braked to a rider drifting back through the group instead of those holding the group speed? or a rider being overtaken by several riders including yourself? (subject to the 3kph limitation)
- is it “instant power” drops below 10 sec average power? Might it make sense to apply a trigger threshold (10%) on both sides?
What if:
#1
You just employed rules #1 and #2, which would ALWAYS slow you to match the speed of the rider(s) in front of you (could be gradual). But rather than keep auto-braking enabled until increased power occurs, allow the drafting-induced speed bonus to start resuming immediately.
I view this as akin to the real world scenario where you are coming up on a slower rider(s) and have to initially slow to determine whether you can move past in some fashion (either an open path left/right or simply moving through a gap between riders). This would seem to prevent riders coming through the group to the front with ALL of the speed they achieved by drafting through the group. In effect, you can’t slingshot THROUGH the group, only around (which is going to be slower in practice because of a decreased draft savings). I don’t think this would operate like the sticky draft, since there is no express condition that maintains stickiness.
#2
What if you were auto-braked to the riders in front of you, but continued excess power caused your avatar to move laterally to clear space. Once the path forward was clear, the avatar could advance. This seems to be a mirror image of the behavior of the avatar on the edge of the group to drift laterally towards the center of the group to get into the draft. So, if there is some sort of draft-seeking behavior, perhaps there could be some sort of overtake-seeking behavior?
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You sure about that? I’m pretty certain the categories are actually fairly comparable; the only difference is we don’t have an “elite” category in the US, and our “novice” category is what used to be cat 5, but cat 4 is still considered a fairly new rider. The progression in the US goes Novice → 4 → 3 → 2 → 1. In the UK doesn’t it go 4 → 3 → 2 → 1 → elite? My point is that earlier you asked, “I’d like to see some strong riders try to sit around 3rd/4th wheel. Will the frantic pace overall calm down once people see doing threshold at the front is a waste of time?” I would consider myself fairly strong and fairly experienced, and the answer is that it is still absurdly difficult to hold position and doesn’t resemble anything close to IRL racing.
I did the 5pm EST B race. We had a strong group of 20-25 after the initial hill. There were a few attempts at establishing a breakaway. None stuck but it felt like this was because of the above average strength of the group. In the pack it felt easier to keep the position I wanted, both near the front and trying to conserve energy at the middle or back. We had a few hard stretches on both flats and hills and the amount of energy I spent to move up in the group felt pretty close to real life.
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I concur. As a former pro and with 35+ years of racing experience, I can confidently say that Zwift is harder than IRL racing and this is entirely due to the pack dynamics. Moving pack dynamics closer to “real life” will make racing more dynamic, not less.
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Not sure I agree, I’m strong in my cat and holding top 10 in tonight’s race felt pretty similar to holding top 10 in my local crits.
If anything with the lack of corners it may have been easier.
Now 40th in the local crits us a recipe to be dropped as it seems in pd4.
As long as you have the fitness it easier to stay near the front. Than constantly swinging just off the bunch.
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I think some of the difference in what we’re seeing are mechanics that might work well with one type of group/category, that don’t work well in others. In races with a bunch of A+ guys, things play out almost identically because there just isn’t any “margin” to create a dynamic environment relative to speed. Ex: if I’m in an A category ZRL/WTRL race with 60 other strong riders, even on a hilly circuit it is impossible to get away because we’re trucking along at 28 mph the whole time even if we’re doing modest w/kg. To create a break in that environment you’d have to do absurd watts and the group will still probably catch up without a real effort. This is why I keep coming back to how drag is modeled - it just doesn’t line up with reality. I saw a similar situation tonight, and that was with a small group - high speeds at relatively modest watts. In the lower categories with lower speeds (or at least more variability with speeds), there is some room relative to the “ceiling” where riders with punch can create opportunities.
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Maybe you have better fitness than your current category says? Maybe the new PD should place you in the next/better category?