The Score Decay System Is Breaking Race Fairness

Racing
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The Score Decay System Is Breaking Race Fairness

I wanted to raise something that’s really frustrating, and it doesn’t even affect me. My own races are just fine.

However, a good friend of mine only gets one real workout a week, and that race means everything to her. It’s her one chance to push hard, stay motivated, and feel part of the community. But lately, those races have been completely thrown off by riders who’ve been inactive for a while and are allowed back into much easier categories because of Zwift’s score decay system.

In a recent race (screenshot attached), the winner put out nearly 4 W/kg in a 160–270 category. That’s not just an outlier, it completely changes the dynamic of the race, and it’s been happening every single week. The front group gets dragged along at a pace that doesn’t belong in that category, while everyone else has no chance to hold wheels or race tactically.

My friend gave it everything, but couldn’t keep up, not because she wasn’t fit enough for her category, but because the bunch was being pulled by riders who simply shouldn’t have been there.

This isn’t about sour grapes or winning; it’s about fairness. Consistent riders who show up week after week should not be punished for staying active, while those returning from long breaks get artificially lower scores and easier races.

I’d really like Zwift to rethink how score decay works, perhaps capping how far someone’s score can fall, or requiring one recalibration race before re-entry. Anything to stop these mismatches from ruining the experience for people who don’t deserve to be treated like this.

Zwift racing has so much potential when it’s fair and balanced, but right now this system is seriously undermining it.

“Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.” — Benjamin Franklin

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#whereIs @Ryy

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I’m in agreement that decay is unnecessary and the current implementation is spoiling racing.

However I’m not sure, in the example you have given, that your friend struggling in this race is all down to decay.

IMO the first two racers, including the winner pulling at 3.9w/kg, are not in that pen due to decay rather they are there as new riders (level 11 and 4) with little race effort history. I’m not sure many systems could identify that they are potentially better than their assigned/calculated category. [There are 2 or 3 racers in top 10 with some small decay but I obviously don’t know how much impact they had on pulling the lead bunch along. ]

This race circuit is not one for those who want to sit in and draft and use their overall fitness. This is a circuit for those (possibly of a slightly heavier weight) who can punch out a good 30s and 1minute power and split the bunch on the two minor climbs each lap. Someone light and without ability to punch out high watts for those short bursts is probably going to struggle irrespective of whether there are one or two in the lead group who shouldn’t be there.

My twopeneth for what it’s worth.

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I dont really understand this new system.

Winner of C in unlocked 17.10 race did 3.5 winner of B did 3.6 and winner of A did 3.8. Surely all 3 could have been in the same category and had a good race against each other?

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I was going to say your comparing apples to oranges, and you are, but a new floor with a 365 point gain is ridiculous.

Zwift, thanks for fixing a problem that never existed.

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In defense of ZRS here, that may actually be completely reasonable if it’s a new racer. (I haven’t looked at this specific rider, but Ian looked at the first two riders and they hadn’t done much riding on Zwift at levels 11 & 4) Anyone just riding around on Zwift who’s never done a hard 5min effort will get something like this first time they race. ZRS can’t do anything with data it doesn’t have.

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Thanks for the support, I appreciate the example isn’t perfect but there are many others, and there doesn’t seem to be any way of avoiding it.

This weeks race had a similar issue sadly:

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You can imagine how demotivating this must be.

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I agree with what you’re saying and it’s true, ZRS can’t use data that it doesn’t have.

But, put these common race results into the larger picture.

Racing makes a very small proportion of total Zwift activities. We are told this to force us to accept why there is little motivation from ZHQ to make apparently simple changes yet every race has 2-5 (or more) participants that appear to be “new” to racing.

If racing is attracting that many new participants, Zwift better improve the platform.

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Its really worrying that, after the failure of the first attempt at results based racing pens, and then the disaster of thr first ZRS seed, and the problems of people not being moved to their seed score, all of which were analysed well and zwift were given well thought through feedback from a group of bright users….that what they decided to do was reintroduce decay.

Zrs wouldn’t be very good without it, but its even worse with it. I’d love to read a proper explanation of why it was reintroduced, as the initial comms again showed a worrying lack of understanding of what the zwift community, those who run clubs and organise races etc want ZRS to do and not do.

Nobody in the community wants to touch it now tbh. Its just poor folk who don’t do the organised racing who gey this rubbish experience.

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As it happens this is the conclusion we’ve arrived at. Find community races that are better suited. It’s a waste of time trying to change the system you have to change yourself.

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I dunno, despite doing TTTs and crushing workouts and dropping a few pounds my ZRS started decaying again and I’m now at the top of a category I don’t belong in. I might have to go crush another race just for fun.

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do it @calfzilla

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Agree with all the comments. The decay system rewards people who have had a high racing score but left zwift alone for an extended period, and penalises people who have been frequently zwifting and their racing score reflects their true ability……..totally the wrong way around.

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I used to race Gary regularly 2+ years ago in Tiny Races, he beat me far more often than I beat him. He then improved his power numbers and lost some weight, while I did the reverse and we ended up in different pens under Category Enforcement and ZRS.

While looking at the individual rankings pen D on zwiftpower earlier, I was shocked to see Gary top of the category.

I was even more shocked when I saw his ZRS is currently 236, just 24 higher than mine, despite his far better numbers!:open_mouth:

On 25th October, his ZRS was 658 and on 2nd November, it tumbled to 189! How the heck has this happened?:thinking:

His 90 day best 5min power was on 22nd September according to the ZRS plugin, in a ladder race, 337W at 87.2Kg which according to ZWIFT ZRS v3 by VirtuSlo should give him a seed score of 405 and so his floor should be ~344.

How on earth has the system let his score drop below 200 before some decent results increased it to 236?

Currently, I’m hoping he simply had a power data reset due to his turbo power meter misfunctioning, because his recent 5mins power has been more like ~250W since 11th October rather than anything like the 337W on 22nd September… That would give him a seed score of ~242 from 264W at 88.6Kg on 5th November.

If there has been a data reset by ZwiftHQ, there really should be an public indication of such action in a racer’s public profile on zwiftpower.

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either its a huge bug or zwift reset something on his profile at the end of October

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