Racing Score Updates [Aug 22 2024]

Racing
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We want to kick off this post by reiterating our appreciation for everyone that has participated in test events and provided feedback during this test period on Zwift Racing Score. With this data the team now has a clear path of tasks defined to get to the point where we’d consider Zwift Racing Score graduated from Zwift Labs. This post is intended to explain what changes you can expect to see as we prepare to graduate the feature.

Race results now include more transparency about hitting or establishing a minimum/floor score. We’ve received a lot of questions and confusion around why the resulting score from the most recent race result does not match the current score listed in the profile page. As of this week, the race results on zwift.com have been updated to accurately show when a racer encounters their floor with new indicators. The same change is coming to the Zwift Companion app next week.

Racing Score Increased: Your Racing Score increased after this race.

Racing Score Decreased: Your Racing Score decreased after this race.

Racing Score High Floor Value: You’ve set a new, higher, floor value for your Racing Score after this race.

Racing Score Low Floor Value: Your Racing Score has decreased to your floor value after this race.

We have begun slowly increasing score volatility, or how much a score can change from the result of a single race. It was useful in early days of testing to ensure scores didn’t vary too wildly from race to race, but the data (and your feedback) is showing we can release the handbrake a bit. This change won’t be immediately apparent, but as racing continues, we will start to see an increase in how quickly scores move.

Starting today, your score can drop 15% lower than where you were seeded. Before this, your initial seed also served as your floor or minimum score. Our original seed algorithm tried to undershoot the prediction slightly to account for this, but we’re seeing many cases where people finish in the bottom half of the field consistently and their scores are not allowed to drop any further. This creates a poor racing experience for those racers since they are never able to adjust to their ideal category. Now that the floor is slightly lower than seed, we hope that this provides the flexibility required to ensure the model works for everyone.

In addition to the changes that have already rolled out, you can expect to see a couple more updates over the next couple of weeks.

  • A more accurate seeding and floor formula that increases the threshold of what we consider a “quality power curve”
  • Support for filtering general classification standings on Zwift Power by racing score ranges

While these are the tasks we plan to tackle in the short term to get ZRS ready for primetime, we’ll of course always be improving and iterating. Keep the feedback coming!

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Does that mean that when we see that icon now you have actually hit seed - 15% ?

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Correct - the icons in race results indicate score floor/minimum, which is now 15% lower than the seed score.

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Can you elaborate on what this means?

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Thanks for the update on the already enacted and currently proposed changes.

Point of clarification, was the score volatility change mentioned above in effect for races that occurred earlier today? I had my score move ~7 points after a 4th place finish today - curious if that was old style movement or new style movement.

Follow-on question, will there be a way to see what your floor value is at any time? or will the only visibility to the value be when you get the alerts that an activity has increased your floor or decreased your score to that minimum floor value?

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This is referring to a lever that we have to tune the accuracy of the model by defining which activities count towards the initial seed score and ongoing floor calculations.

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Thanks, the work is sincerely appreciated

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Point of clarification, was the score volatility change mentioned above in effect for races that occurred earlier today?

It was in effect, but because we wanted to avoid totally reprocessing all of the historical races, the volatility change will slowly ramp up over time. When we reset at the end of the test period, volatility will be able to move faster out of the gate.

Will there be a way to see what your floor value is at any time?

Not yet, but this is a great request and something we plan to eventually improve as we provide better insight into your score and how it has moved historically.

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A historical score trend-line would a very welcome feature. Thanks again for the updates and clarification.

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Is score decay still a thing? And if so, will your score decay to the seed or to the floor?

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Thank you for the changes. I note that my score dropped about 5% (27 points) due to the “15% below seed score” change.

I’m curious how you’ll handle increased seed scores for people who have dropped below them. For example, if I were to go out right now and set a new 30sec power record and increase my seed score by 5 points, would my racing score rise by 5 points (remember, I’m sitting 27 points/5% below my seed score)? Or would it stay the same since my sub-seed racing score would still be within the -15%?

I guess it comes down to whether the results-based racing score is a stand-alone score or whether it’s an addition/subtraction to/from your seed score.

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Is score decay still a thing? And if so, will your score decay to the seed or to the floor?

Yes, decay is still in place. The furthest your score can possibly decay is the floor as this is the minimum your score can ever reach. The decay mechanism may stop for an individual before hitting that point though.

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This is possible if the floor “dropped out from under you” when we deployed the change today. Your new score is where you would’ve been if the previous floor wasn’t in place.

if I were to go out right now and set a new 30sec power record and increase my seed score by 5 points, would my racing score rise by 5 points (remember, I’m sitting 27 points/5% below my seed score)? Or would it stay the same since my sub-seed racing score would still be within the -15%?

It would stay the same since you’re above your floor. The only way power bests will increase your score is if you’re at your floor currently and you achieve a new 30s/600s power best or your new floor exceeds your current score.

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Curious and looking forward to these changes. Sounds a lot more promising.

But better views where your own score is would be nice. Is it at seed, is it at floor. In between or above. That along with a history.

And will we be able to see other riders ZRS when we sign up for a race ? And than I dont mean checking everyones profile, but in the race overview who is attending.

Ps
" * A more accurate seeding and floor formula that increases the threshold of what we consider a “quality power curve”

Will that fix the extreme cases of over- and underseeding some of us are experiencing ?

And will you make public what has changed in the seed formula ?

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We’re still aligning on what exactly will change with this threshold. Currently testing a few different options. Will plan to share a bit more info once it’s live.

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The boundaries shouldn’t be a set percentage. 15% of 275 score doesn’t lower your division. It’s only 41 points.

15% of 450 ZRS is much more substantial, -67.5 which lowers your division.

And at 600 points that is 90 points decrease dropping you nearly 2 divisions.

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On face value you’re probably right. And coupled with score decay we could be a few weeks away from having the same problems with 15% lower scores.

But I think we need to see how it works with the changes to the seeding formula and the increased score volatility as a cohesive system, it could be a non-issue.

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Something has changed as my ZRS Score droped from 673 after the race yesterday to 618 this morning.
I hope it’s not only ZRS races that are included in the Seed Calculation…cause my 30s and 10min PB’s are both from CE Races

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A percentage is meaningful only if the error in seeding increases with higher values. Zwift can analyze the percentage of scores that participants should have dropped at various seeding scores to verify this correlation.

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i lost about 20pts but my zrs PRs are close to my normal PRs. probably