Interruptions of real rider conversations by Robopacers are not generally appreciated. If they have to say something maybe do it on a timer - like 2 minutes after someone last messaged
This is a great idea. I frequently ride with groups that text almost continuously. It can be difficult enough to track the conversations without the repeated interruptions from the RoboPacers. This suggestion is perfect. A two minute break before they repeat their incessant monologues would be great. Support this completely.
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This isnāt possible Iām afraid. They are programmed to say something every 5 minutes regardless of whether or not something else has been said.
Iām tempted to put in a feature request to prevent groups that text almost continuously from interrupting the RoboPacers. 
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James,
Canāt timers be started as the result of an event? Rather than the timer be fired repeatedly every 5 minutes, instead, start the timer when somebody messages. If anybody messages within that time, start the timer over. When the timer event eventually fires, it will be x minutes since somebody last messaged and the Robopacer can speak.
So yes, I agree, creating, resetting, maybe destroying the timer etc. when a rider messages will be more complicated than simply creating a timer, setting its interval, and hooking it up to the āRobopacerSpeakā event but I donāt think impossible.
This shouldnāt be a discussion of HOW to implement a request. However, your dismissal, of it has led me to ask implementation questions. Rather this should be about the merits of the suggestion, how others, if anybody, feel about it and/or improvements of the suggestion.
Given the complexity of hundreds of features in Zwift simply saying something isnāt possible feels disingenuous and a little dismissive and not quite in the spirit of the exchange of ideas that a forum is supposed to foster.
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No, itās very basic.
Itās every x seconds during the ride (which lasts for a week).
Sorry - I wasnāt being intentionally dismissive, just explaining how it works presently.
Yes I understand how it works and you said it isnāt possible!?!? I understand that Iām presenting an idea that would necessarily change how it currently works. I donāt think itās impossible.
But is it even worth the effort?
there are almost no conversations without people interrupting each other talking over each other.
I would suggest rather improving the chat function so that rider text does not overlay the previous message.
Example: (not hard to find more)
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Itās not impossible, but I just donāt see a large demand for it.
Gerrie,
Yes thank you. The client(s) determines the usefulness of a suggestion. The effort required should be addressed later once itās determined there is a desire for it. Having it decided (by staff) that there is no demand or implying itās not possible before the discussion has really started is not what a forum is or should be about.
I would support improving the chat function somehow.
As another option I would support removing Robopacers ability to speak.
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Iāve got a great place to start; group / team private chats is a great place to start!
Thereāve been plenty of times where I want to communicate to my teammates during a ride, and only way I can do so is get lucky and find them on companion app, and try and type out to a few of them.
Team chats would be HUGELY welcoming.
Thereās another thread kind of ongoing about pace partner chat, and to me itās just kind of one of those things that turns into an inside joke and is funny at this point, basically turning into a game of āwhat will the robot say next??ā
I hope Zwift can work on some of the social aspects this year.
Itās kind of surprising to me to see how many people that get SUPER angry and upset when people chat; Zwift to me is majority about socialized riding than anything else.
So I donāt want to disregard those comments because, they do appear almost on the weekly between here, facebook, even in-game.
But group chats, would be a fantastic place to start, where we can add friends to during rides, so we donāt have to fill up the public chat; either to save others from hearing the dinging or readingā¦ lord knows what. But can also serve a great function between for team usage during races.
Now that would be a brilliant idea. Iād much rather read the repeated drivel from the RoboPacers than actual humans.
Andrew, great idea
I would suggest rather improving the chat function so that rider text does not overlay the previous message.
THIS. Itās difficult to impossible to follow the chat without the Companion app. Having messages appear over other messages is just bad UI/UX. Iād guess thereās more demand for this to be fixed/improved, itās probably easier to implement, and it would also solve the problem of bots talking over people.
Group/team chat is a good idea too. I think a āwhisperā function would be nice too. Letās say youāre in a breakaway in a race and you want to make a plan with the others in the breakaway. IRL you could quietly hatch a scheme with each other, but on Zwift you have to broadcast your intentions to everyone in the race even though theyād be out of earshot.
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Maybe part of why there isnāt more demand is that you can private message using the Companion App.
Just use Sauce4zwift, completely solves the issue.
Chat will show in an orderly fashion with the avatar and name of the one who wrote something.
And yes zwift chat is COMPLETELY useless as is.
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Only to one person (not a group) though, right?
That is a thing of beauty. Iāve been meaning to try Sauce for ages but never got around to it - Iāll have to give it a shot soon!
I believe there isnāt more demand bechause even if people are anoyed by the pacepartner repetitions, they usually donāt put in the effort to voice their opinions.
Iāve asked 3 people what they think about these pacepartner messages, and they donāt care for them. These people are pretty vocal about things in conversations but to them, actually complaining somewhere is too much work.
It is a minor inconveniance tho, and with sauce you could probably block the pace partner chat outright.
This actually have me an idĆ©a and iāll ask someone to make it!
Yeah. But thatās somewhat like IRL too, where at speed itās hard to talk to multiple people at once 
Iām absolutely not dumping cold water on the ideaāI think the rider list could benefit from having a robust ability to select and do things with riders. Being able to flag certain riders, or keep them always on the list for example, would be great. And once you can flag certain riders, then a group chat would be a next step.
That would also mean even in casual riding that the rest of Watopia doesnāt need to hear someoneās humble brags about how theyāre ātired so theyāre only doing 100km at 4w/kg todayā. 