It’s a 3rd party site with the rankings listed. Zwift are not on board with it, no. I’m hoping if the Zwift community get behind a fit for purpose ranking system, then Zwift can’t possibly implement ZP/USAC with all of the negatives that will bring. Especially as one person on their own has managed to implement it successfully, and they don’t even have proper access to the data. ( I have raised this with them directly, but it fell on deaf ears).
@Gordon_Rhino-Racing has suggested setting up a trial ranking based race when it is launched (will need riders to enter the right pen of course). I’ll get this set up and share here and on Zwift Racers Facebook.
Very interesting, thanks for sharing.
I think what could work is that your pen is determined by the Platinum/Gold/Silver etc. league you are in; You get promoted to different leagues based on ELO gains mid-season, but you only go down leagues during season resets. That would prevent people from tanking their rankings to enter lower pens, outside of immediately before season reset. I don’t think that is how it is currently setup though.
Overall, exciting stuff. Agreed would be interesting to try out
One quirk in the current system which I feel should be addressed is that you can come flat last in a small field and regardless of how badly you’re beaten still get a ranking upgrade. I raced up in the As (as I surely would be under a ranking based system). Predictably came flat last (5/5) but got a ranking Upgrade even though I pootled half of the race.
The current ranking system gives too much weight to freak results for those who race a lot. If I happen to find myself in a small race with my kind of course and riders who are highly ranked but for whatever reason aren’t performing well, that result will skew me highly for 90 days. This is far more likely to happen to riders who race a lot. Taking the average of the top quartile of races would seem to deal with all but the most committed of sandbaggers.
Has any further thought been given to giving users who never update their weight a bit of a nudge? Seems a far more prevalent problem in terms of fair racing.
Prediction: Zwift take no notice whatsoever of the constructive suggestions about ranking systems, they stick with their current plan and it ends up full of holes, and we say “we told you so”.
Isn’t the big flaw with Zwiftpower’s ranking system that it simply rates you on the average of your best five results over a rolling 90 day period and you don’t lose rank points for “bad” results?
An ELO-esque ranking system is far better than that.
There are many flaws, for me the biggest one is that it only reaches a roughly accurate rank for very frequent racers. This means the lower rungs of the rankings are packed full of strong riders, which would ruin the race experience for anyone genuinely ranked in that area.
You’d think, wouldn’t you. But virtually every study shows that if you have to actively cheat, by clicking ‘yes my weight is correct’ then people are far far less likely to do so than if they can passively keep it the same
This thread has great ideas, but unfortunately, it should be recreated in the “Feature Request” forum, and then obtain the correct (which is an unknown value) number of petitioned votes.
I think the ranking will help a bit with this issue, the only advantage with weight change in a ranked system is you go faster and that will move your rank up so you race against faster and better riders.
Rob, that is one of the issues with the ZP ranking system. The ZP system works ok assigning Race Rank points but only when all those within the race are ranked broadly the same - within 10% of the average of best 5 from top10 finishers. I believe it is what it then does with that Race Rank score that lets the system down somewhat. Hopefully something else better is being discussed within this thread.
If your ranking is more than 10% lower than the average of the best 5 finishers in top 10 then you can not achieve a Race Rank score better than your current ranking - even if you win. (Except see note 1. below)
If your ranking is more than 10% higher than the average of best 5 finishers then you are bound to get a Race Rank score better than your current ranking even if you come dead last.
I think I have found the race you are using as an example (2021). In that race the average of 4 best racers was 337. ( race shows winner with no ranking, I think it was 600, so only other four were used)
Your ranking before the race was 361, so less than 10% over the 337 so race results should be ok. You received a Race Rank score of 371 so, as you expect for coming last, worse than your 361 ranking. So why did you receive a Gain of 2 in your rank? Because ZP system uses average of your best 5 and this 371 Race Rank score was 10 better than your worst score of the 5. If ZP system was using only your last actual Race Rank score you would have gone down in ranking BUT it is the fact that ZP uses average of 5 which resulted in you gaining in ranking even for coming last.
Hopefully this can be addressed by using a better option currently being put to Zwift.
Note 1. Similar to just explained (I hope above !) for coming last and gaining the same applies in reverse. Winning a race where you are clearly by far the best Ranked racer in the field. Your Race Rank score is almost certainly bound to be higher than your ranking but if it is better than the worst of your 5 counting scores then you will gain a ranking as your average will be improved.
Thanks Ian! Great analysis. I was actually referring to this race:
Though similar applies. The fifth rider was DQd for no HR data.
I’d entered the race with the hope of improving my 20 minute power numbers and not knowing at the time how ratings worked, had no idea I’d get a bump. I think I had a goal at the start of the year to get into the top…500? In the UK on ratings. And this was the race that did it for me, but it felt like the goal was a stupid one and since then I’ve largely ignored ratings as my 9 year old could’ve come last in that race and gotten the same boost!
Another aspect about it that feels wrong is that it’s also self-perpetuating, especially if you ride in small fields as I quite often tend to (I have weeks where I race at 5/6 am). By having a low rating, I make the race quality higher (number lower) by my own presence. Ratings systems shouldn’t work that way.
Yes this race was a clear example where you couldn’t fail to improve your ranking.
When a system uses average of best 5 race rank scores regular racers are almost certainly going to trend in a better ranking direction. Again I don’t think this is the fault of the Race Rank score being allocated in each race but how that score then fits into your best 5.
If everyone was racing flat out trying to get the very best ranking they could you would only ever need to use your last Race Rank score to be your ranking. Race well - ranking improves, race badly - ranking gets worse.
But what we all fear is race badly, race badly, win your next race. Rinse and repeat.
New ranking system coming today folks. We have a trial event where pens are split according to your rankings. Scheduled for 18:30PM UTC on Wednesday, keep it free!