Apologies if this has been asked and answered many times before but I’m not understanding how the racing scores get calculated. I just finished a race where I won the B category, and actually finished ahead of most of the A racers as well, (screenshots attached so you can see the finishing times) but zwift is saying that I lost 50 points on my zwift racing score. I realize that the field was tiny and a high finish in a larger field is weighted more but the second place finisher got a score increase so it doesn’t seem to make sense to me that I would lose 50 points.
I think you did great beating the guy in second who was clinically dead. The results get worse the higher up the categories you go.
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I suspect you haven’t done a Racing Score race for 30+ days, so you have had decay applied, which is more than the points you got for winning.
-50 is your net score change since your last Racing Score race.
Such a stupid system.
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Its from decay that was introduced a few months ago. If you haven’t raced any ZRS eligible races then you have been losing a few points each day since September. The results page however displays your pre-decay score and any changes to the score can look like a negative. For example:
ZRS was 400, then decay brought it down to 300. You get 30 point increase in a race, the results look like a -70 and your new score is 330.
The FAQ says this but it’s incorrect. Smaller fields give bigger score movements.
But as others have said, most of what you’re seeing is due to score decay and how score changes are displayed.
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How we have a system in place that still gives greater rewards for smaller fields ~17 months on, at least as low as just two finishers, yet we’ve had decay reintroduced is beyond absurd.
ZRS doesn’t need bandaids.
It needs nuking from orbit, just to be sure.
Many times over!
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I see, you are all correct about me not having done any races recently. I don’t use Zwift during the summer months because I’m riding outside, so things happen in the game that I end up being oblivious to when I come back once it gets cold again. Thank you for clarifying this for me!
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Just tagging on to this thread because I don’t get it either. I don’t race a lot, but even so I’d expect the racing score to make sense to me.
I just did an event in the 270-390 range. I started on 363, but haven’t done a scoring race since August.
I just got a smaller increase than people who finished behind me, even if they started on a higher score than me (the guy in 9th went from 375-394; I finished 4th and went from 363-372).
Is there an explainer or breakdown about how this stuff actually works? I looked at the FAQ, but it doesn’t have anything along these lines.
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I don’t think there is. We’ve been pretty vocal about how the scoring system seems broken. Small fields give bigger increases, it doesn’t seem to matter if you beat people with higher scores than you, the max 30 score has some new bugs where it is ignoring new seed scores set by 5 min power PRs.
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ZRS is a cut they put a bandaid on, they remove the bandaid, then shortly after cut again, add another bandaid. Pretty soon it will just bleed out from all the cuts and it will be dead.
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Race result movements are calculated using the ZRS score at the end of their last ZRS race NOT from the ZRS score they might have started the race with. When someone has a new 5 minute PB since their last ZRS race that gain in ZRS is shown in their next race results.
This is the FAQ bit that covers non race result movements and are most likely applicable to the rider in 9th.
“Q: Why doesn’t the Racing Score in my profile match the score I received in my last Race Results?
A: Your Racing Score can increase from activities you participate in outside of racing. If, for example, new power bests are established during a free-ride or workout, this can cause your Racing Score to increase, and it may be higher than your last Race Result.”
You likely gained more race result points from this race than he did but he most likely had a new recent 5 minute PB to be added to his race result points gain. (If a racer sets a new 5 minute PB in the race this ZRS gain is ‘sometimes’ also shown in the race results )
So still not something that’s intuitive or clear.
The race result should separate components of score increases, so the race part is clear, alongside another “random non-race result stuff that has happened”.
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More transparency is required for users to trust the system. Without that, trust is just something you want but can’t have.
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Absolutely. Otherwise nobody can make sense of the movements. There are a few things Zwift needs to do to make racing score intuitive, the change they decided to invest in first was adding decay which paired with how they show updated ZRS in results made things even more confusing. Now the decay scenario is a bit better, but that took dev work to go back and forth that could have been used to make things more intuitive instead.
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If you get a new 90-day best 5min seed score, isn’t the system supposed to move you to that seed score these days, if your current ZRS is below it?
Today I suprisingly set a recent 5mins best, 280W at 91.5Kg, before the race I was 191 and ZWIFT ZRS v3 by VirtuSlo says that should result in a seed score of ~259.
But my ZRS after the race only increased to 232, including the podium bonus.
Makes me wonder how many other racers are not getting a correct seed score ZRS adjustment, if I’ve recalled the announcement correctly.
I think my new Victory is reading a little higher than my 4iiii and dead Saris, while I’ve oddly lost ~1.5Kg this week, which I really should have adjusted on my zwift profile more gradually during this week.
Confused dot com again regarding this daft system that needs putting down.
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A couple of things could be going on there.
ZRS doesn’t use only your current weight in the seed calculation. It uses the same averaged weight as CE, so if you’ve lost a bit of weight the full impact of it won’t be seen unless you set PBs at 1, 3, 5, and 20 minutes - I’m pretty sure those are the intervals, and it treats watts and w/kg PBs separately for a total of 8 values.
The move to seed doesn’t seem to happen until the end of the the activity, which is after the race results are generated. You may see someone’s being moved to their new floor or some results based score on the results sheet, but if you go to their profile after the race you can see their score is at their new seed.
The new seed score doesn’t count for your 30-day maximum. You can have a higher score than your maximum because of it, and can enter races using max score according to the max score shown.
And it seems to be random whether the next race result will use your new seed score in the calculation or ignore it completely.
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Anyone looked into how seed score increases are triggered?
As in, does the system simply look for a new pure Watts 5min best and decide that’s the new seed score, regardless of the claimed rider weight?
Or does the system look at both rider weight and pure Watts 5mins, calculate the seed score and see if that’s higher than the current level?
Under the old system, Category Enforcement, I believe the system simply looked for a pure Watts improvement in the 4-6min effort range. So a rider could set a relatively silly high weight for a private Zwift session, do a monster 4-6min pure Watts best which would then be converted to W/Kg to set a new zMAP. If that was under 3.2W/Kg, lower your weight back down to normal declared numbers and you’re likely not getting a zMAP promotion from pen D for a while unless your power meter starts reading higher!
Shirley ZRS changes based on position in pen should only be looking at finish position against those who crossed the line?
Why is ZRS still comparing finish position against the number of signups for a pen and still giving nonsense changes?
Tonight’s Mountain Massif TT triple event, looking at my results in pen D…
Race 1: 5th of 6 finishers on zwiftpower ZwiftPower - Login
As seen on Tim’s site (which now shows racers not registered on zwiftpower) 7th of 8 finishers https://www.zwiftracing.app/events/5236059
Companion app 7th of 12 (so 4 racers either didn’t turn up or didn’t move enough to register on Tim’s site as a DNF)
ZRS change of -1… Nonsense!
Race 2: 4th of 5 finishers on zwiftpower ZwiftPower - Login
On Tim’s site 4th of 5 finishers https://www.zwiftracing.app/events/5236086
On Companion app 4th of 9 (so 4 “phantom” racers)
ZRS change of +6… Absolute garbage!
Race 3 7th of 7 on zwiftpower ZwiftPower - Login
10th of 10 finishers and 1 DNF on Tim’s site https://www.zwiftracing.app/events/5236092
On Companion app 10th of 15 (so 4 “phantom” racers)
ZRS change of at least -17 (hit 85% seed score floor)
How can you possibly look at those example races and say ZRS is working as intended, especially in race 2, where my ZRS should have gone down and not up?
No-show signups and DNFs should not be influencing ZRS changes, the system should only look at the finishers and whether those in the bottom half did a reasonable effort!
ZRS is not fit for purpose.
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This bug needs to be squashed, where do these phantoms come from? I’ve noticed that the numbers signed up on companion are usually lower than what is shown once the event starts. For example: 138 signed up on companion, event starts and riders nearby shows 147, event ends with 129 finishers. Where do these numbers come from on the zwifters nearby list???
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The “phantom” racers are people that sign up, but then either don’t get to the start pen in time, or they don’t move their avatar enough (could be just watching others in the pen they signed up for, with no intention to race or ride the event) to register as a DNF and definitely not finish the event.
While racing I think the HUD is often if not always, showing your position relative to the signup number, rather than how many are on the course.
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