Did I miss an announcement. Haven’t done a Route of week in a while and I see for it and climb of the week there is drops bonus of 15k each?
I noted that today, also. I don’t do these often, but I had thought it was a 250 XP bonus. 
There have never been announcements for this kind of changes.
Ride for the week and climb of the week are now only worth 15,000 drops each. no motivation and with all the events being based around racing or workouts, as someone who doesn’t race, there’s the least amount of external motivation for me I’ve seen on the game since I joined four years ago.
Most events on Zwift are not races or workouts, and a substantial majority of people on Zwift do not race. Most events are social group rides where the group is intended to stay together.
It’ll be interesting to see what participation looks like with this as the “reward.” It hardly seems worth the time when riding with a RoboPacer would earn more Drops in the same amount of time. And we already have what feels like 100 RoboPacers to choose from, spaced at 0.1 W/kg increments across every flat route on the north side of Watopia.
Maybe this is Zwift’s way of quietly phasing out Climb of the Week, Route of the Week, and the less-used worlds without having to announce it.
Useful info from ZwiftInsider, as usual, shows a variety of drops or XP over next two months then back to XP in December.
So basically theres no use in riding RotW/CotW every other week.
Looking at the upcoming calendar this starts to make more sense. Zwift seems to be preparing for an influx of new users and many will be new to cycling. Subscription services like Zwift can see a lot of churn among new accounts, so giving those users easily attainable rewards is a way to keep them engaged early and turn them into long-term subscribers.
That’s my guess as to why they’re ditching the longer routes and Climb Portal climbs for easy participation trophies with drop rewards. It’s a bummer for dedicated Zwifters who enjoy a new weekly challenge, but it makes sense for their bottom line.
Hopefully, Zwift throws the rest of us a bone with challenging routes on the new Watopia roads, useful Cervélo and Canyon Halo bikes, tough routes for Tour of Watopia, and a meaningful challenge in Power Play.
Maybe they were becoming too popular and taking users away from other events.
I think they were almost mandatory for people trying to get to level 200 as fast as possible, along with every new route with a badge. And any events that gave double XP.
Newer subscribers may want drops to get bikes and wheels. There’s lots of good equipment available at at low levels but the drops tend to be lacking.
For people who crave XP, Tour of Watopia is coming up very soon, with new routes from the expansion (XP bonuses for the routes) and double XP for distance in every event.
I know one regular RoW rider who will no be participating. I have more drops than I can use. Leveling up has always been a motivator for me and I expect many others. Seem to be fewer carrots every month. Reaching 200 no longer seems achievable in a lifetime. If that motivation has been removed on zwift I no longer have a reason not to change to another platform. Ah that’s right Zwift is buying them up!
I think it’s a good thing they switched over to drops instead of xp. They’re already throwing around loads of xp in all sorts of challenges. And it’s super hard to earn drops. 15k drops is an insult to the player base though. At that rate it takes over a year of doing both the ride of the week and climb of the week to earn just one extra bike, and over 5 years to be able to buy a halo bike.
I’m with you on that one. I’ve done the route and climb of the week pretty much every week since they were released, but won’t waste my time for 15k drops on the same set of flat and boring routes they’re shuffling around for the 14 robo pacers. This would have been the perfect way to bring people to the other worlds.
It really is. New users were better off with the old XP bonuses, too. The XP gaps between levels is modest early on and an extra 750xp each week could help level up with a 50k drop bonus.
I would rather drops over XP. And I can’t ride with a robopacer when I’m trying to do TrainerRoad workouts, which is my main Zwift activity at the moment.
Zero incentive for me to do the route or climb now. As far as bonuses go, if I want drops I will sit behind a pace partner, and if XP is more important, I would have done route/climb/workout of the week. 15K drops is so negligable it’s not worth bothering about. It’s certainly no way the equivalent of 500XP.
It’s a pity as it did encourage me to ride different routes and climbs. I’m not a big fan of the climb portal in general, but I used it a lot more with climb of the week.
The bonuses are obviously there to increase engagement with the routes so the rewards really need to actually encourage the use. In principle drops would be OK, but it would have to be 100K a time to be worth it. A lot of established riders are gaining drops quicker than they can spend them.
This has just been added. I’ve been a millionaire in Drops for almost a decade, so I don’t really see the motivation, and I own Halo bikes along with every type of bike wheel I could ever need. Someone did ask for Drops instead of XP not long ago, though, so there you have it lol.
I do most of my training through Zwift workouts, so I get absolutely killed on XP at my intensity level. I used to like doing the Route/Climb of the Week because it gave me a way to recover some of the XP I was losing by doing workouts.
I know time flies when we’re having fun, but Drops were introduced in February 2019.
Yes, 8 years, so? Which part of “almost” didn’t you understand? Having a rough day? LOL
My day is going very well, thank you.
That’s actually only 75% of a decade.
If you’re OK with 75% being “almost”, I don’t know how you figure you “get absolutly killed on XP” by doing workouts.
As long as you get 75% XP, you should be happy, right? That’s almost all that’s available, right?