I’m creating this topic to open the discussion about possible quick improvements to the existing power-ups in races.
I think it’s well established that currently the Aero power-up is the most effective/valuable power-up and all the others provide a very slight advantage, so the goal is to tune all the others to be also valuable and lead to more interesting racing scenarios.
This is the set of changes I propose:
If you are in a race event, it should not be possible to get XP when power-ups are active, you should always get a power up.
Truck - increase duration by 30 seconds. (currently it increases draft by 150%)
Feather - increase duration by 30 to 45 seconds OR increase power with a 10-20% decrease in weight ?
Ghost - increase duration to 30 to 45 seconds
Burrito - increase duration to 1 minute
Steam Roller - increase duration by 15 seconds
Anvil - don’t think it needs changing. Perhaps increase duration and reduce power by a bit?
Hi David,
Can you please list the current durations, are they all 30 seconds right now, or are some 15 seconds?
My first thoughts, get rid of ghost, burrito and steam roller all together and the Anvil seems to be too powerful at the moment. I didn’t get it at the top of the KOM in this weeks ZRL, so would love to hear from anyone who did and used it on the downhill back to the pavement. I recall seeing the anvil create some pretty impressive gaps in past races, and with PDv4 that might be an unbeatable situation?
The steamroller can be extremely useful, so I’d hate to see that disappear. Ghost and burrito are no good to me whatsoever but I’m not sure if some people get some use out of them.
My first thoughts, get rid of ghost, burrito and steam roller all together
Getting rid of power ups is not an option we’re discussing so let’s please not get into that. Besides, there are events without power ups and they are configurable, so that is left to the event organiser to decide.
The Anvil is at times extremely powerful since last change. On sprints at Park Perimeter Loop it had significantly more impact than an aero. I’d tone it down and make it a relative increase rather than absolute number.
Although, admittedly I’m against powerups in general for racing. Randomizers in in a sport are not great.
From my very limited racing, and from what I read, the Aero is so useful because it helps (greatly?) in winning a sprint. As far as I can see from my own experience the use of truck and feather are there to help me avoid getting dropped not to help with a win.
There has been talk on this forum that the duration of some of the other Powerups need to be long enough to make a useful difference towards a possible breakaway. I’m thinking something like the Ghost being over a minute or even longer.
But this then begs the question at what point in the race could a 2 minute Ghost be used - within the first quarter/half of the race ok but 2 minutes from the end of the race seems a little unfair.
Whatever you do with Powerups I think the balance and benefit of use of others should be such that if you get an Aero at your first opportunity you should not be looking to hang on to it until the sprint, which I think is what many riders currently do now.
A question about Truck and Feather - Do these help your sprint, even if not as much as the Aero? And if so would their longer duration add an extra dimension towards the very end of more races?
I’ve often thought the ghost power up was too short to be useful. I do think increasing that one would be very helpful in promoting a breakaway. 1min duration for the burrito might be a bit much however, guess I’d have to see that in action. Might be worth doing some test events on it to see how it changes things.
I’m always getting dropped on hills, so I always try my best to save feathers personally otherwise I’m not gonna be at the final sprint anyhow Slightly longer feather would be good for me.
One other quazi-related idea: If you already have a power-up when going through another banner, maybe just give the user the bonus XP then. That would work in both races, and free-rides. i.e. instead of getting nothing you get a tiny bit of XP in those cases.
I think the proposed changed are way too powerful. For me it seems it moves it even further away from fair and equal race. If its because the aero is op it might be more usefull to nerf that than create even more gamification.
Lets take the buritto 1min pu in a race of 75 riders. This will not be a race any more, but instead a TT with the occasional draft. The 45sec ghost, good luck in any points race, where you just will have a bunch of invisible avatars sprinting against eachother.
The current Anvil is way more powerful than Aero for any sprint with a descend in the last 500 meters, like the Yumesi finish banner
You are doing a lot of work in getting the pd to work better and be more “real”, and for me this just seems again to go the opposite direction and introduce more chaos.
The only way i can see this be a benifit for racing if its introduces alongside bannerspecific PU’s, so it becomes a tactical game of which one each rider wants to save
and the Anvil seems to be too powerful at the moment. I didn’t get it at the top of the KOM in this weeks ZRL, so would love to hear from anyone who did and used it on the downhill back to the pavement. I recall seeing the anvil create some pretty impressive gaps in past races, and with PDv4 that might be an unbeatable situation?
