If they signed up then the number on the companion app would closely match the zwifters nearby list, this is not happening.
It seems like the last finisher gets a negative movement regardless of any DNFs, which I think is intended as the opposite of the podium bonuses. Except when they are below the effort threshold so get no downward movement.
Did a ZRace this morning, 510-650 pen and my ZRS was 517, lowest in the field. Outperform with a 22/35, get -1. Great system. @Ryy any updates on when score movements will work properly?
feature not a bug? 
Repeat after me…
ZRS score does not equal ability.
ZRS score does not equal ability.
ZRS score does not equal ability.
ZRS score does not equal ability.
ZRS score does not equal ability.
Zwift TT Club ditched ZRS ~2 months ago iirc and I think it now uses Category Enforcement again, which I think I prefer, albeit I don’t like the arbitary minimum zFTP floors (150/200/250W) to get promotion to pens C/B/A respectively that I think are at least 25W too high.
Zwift Crit Club and Zwift Insider Tiny Races are using ZRS Max, using your highest ZRS of the last 30 days to pen allocate, but it doesn’t always work part way through a Tiny Races quartet. It stops sangbaggers lowering ZRS to get in a weaker pen, which is good, but on the bad side it will result in a mass movement of riders into stronger pens… Except every ~5 weeks some will have manipulated their score downwards to end up back in the weaker pen, where there will be less competition, unless new riders join in.
Then what does it equal? Movements basically don’t exist so it’s just a 5 minute power seed and nothing else.
ZRS is a weak correlation of your demonstrated (not necessarily true) 5min ability for a given weight at a given claimed weight.
Combined with whether you finish in the top half or bottom half of all signups for your pen, even if many do not even turn up in the start pen.
Plus a little bonus for getting a podium spot.
My recent 5mins best is 283W at 91.5Kg (~3.1W/Kg), which ZWIFT ZRS v3 by VirtuSlo thinks gives a seed score of ~265, but the highest my ZRS has been is and still is 262, so I’m a definitely low end pen D for Tiny Races.
Tiny Races pen D upper ZRS limit is 350, so a race rookie could turn up with these example 5min abilities…
325W at 91.5Kg (~3.55W/Kg)
292W @ 80Kg (~3.65W/Kg)
264W @ 70Kg (~3.77W/Kg)
235W @ 60Kg (~3.92W/Kg)
205W @ 50Kg (~4.1W/Kg)
176 @ 40Kg (~4.4W/Kg)
145 @ 30Kg (4.83W/Kg)
But wait! It gets worse… Now consider the 85% seed score (5mins ability) score floor. A racer with a seed score of up to 411 can purposely drop their ZRS under 350 and compete in pen D Tiny Races, providing they have kept their ZRS under 350 for the last 30 days.
So a 411 seed score racer can have the following approx 5min abilities…
347 @ 90Kg (~3.86W/Kg)
317W @ 80Kg (3.95W/Kg)
286W @ 70Kg (~4.09W/Kg)
255W @ 60Kg (~4.25W/Kg)
223W @ 50Kg (~4.46W/Kg)
190W @ 40Kg (~4.75W/Kg)
157W @ 30Kg (~5.23W/Kg)
I must stress that the above example is extreme sandbagging and one half proper race effort would give a podium and they’ll be above 350 for a month, but if they don’t race properly, they can utterly wreck the race for true pen Ds.
How is someone like me doing 3.1W/Kg supposed to compete in the same pen up a moderate hill with racers who can do 3.5-5.2W/Kg (depending upon their claimed weight) up a 5min hill, in the second weakest Tiny Races pen? 
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Ok I think we’re on the same page here. I was more asking what’s it supposed to be. Because right now it’s not really anything but a mess.
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if You Race Primetime your ZRS is going to Lower, video coming soon.
I don’t know about you guys but do I don’t get the feeling that discussing/complaining about ZRS here in the forum moves the priority needle at ZHQ? do you?
Anyone?
To me it seems, the only good coming out of these threads, is that the usual suspects and the occasional thread starter, get to discharge/share their stress/frustration with others.
Coming from a Software Dev Company, I’m unsure whether Forum metrics are taken into any team’s performance reviews. On the other hand, opening Support tickets, do influence into the performance evaluation and also brings data into the SW development lifecycle.
Maybe what we all should start doing is, opening support tickets and posting them here in the forum. There are some very good examples you guys have posted that shows how the system is flawed, opening a well-documented support ticket will help raise the attention to this problem.
My 2c
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I’d love to get masses of Zwifters to sign up for all the ZRS events they can for a week and then not show up, so that many events have less than half the total pen signups actually turn up and complete the race.
Consequently, I believe only the very last finisher in each pen might get a ZRS decrease, if they put in a reasonable effort.
Everyone else will who puts in a reasonable effort will either get no ZRS change, or an increase, even if they came for example 9th out of 10 pen racers that crossed the line.
ZRS changes should only depend on who finished the complete course in a pen, signups who don’t even show up or simply don’t finish should have no influence on ZRS changes! 
ZRS is absurd to the core, at least how it’s implemented in Zwift racing.
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@Ryy can you confirm or deny if this will result in ZRS being improved?
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Someone in the race I did today Z2ed it and didn’t get a vELO decrease because of not meeting minimum effort levels, but got a -22 ZRS movement and he wasn’t even last. He has been racing so this isn’t a decay issue.
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After resetting the decay of my 277 or so ZRS back to around 380, I am now 385 after a couple races.. That link you provided shows me at a 319 score.
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Isn’t this the fatal flaw underlying ZRS? From what I recall reading the stuff about the underlying “open skill” logic, it relies on everyone in the same match/competition being equally matched or at least not knowingly mismatched.
in Zwift racing, this rarely occurs as there’s only 5 ability bands which cover usually elites down to those at the start of their “fitness journey”. A spread of even 100 ZRS points represents a large ability difference.
Short version: Can ZRS. Use vELO.
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And than we will be complaining about vELO.
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Why do you think that? It’s open to being “gamed” by those in the lower categories but the relationship between your race result vs rivals’ vELO ratings and the change in your vELO rating is pretty intuitive.
eg:
beat more higher ranked than lower ranked riders => vELO increases (and vice versa)
beat much higher ranked riders => vELO increases relatively more
I can’t say I’ve fully dug into the terrain adjustments but they’re not particularly large.
Or were you making a general observation that people will complain regardless?!
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Because no matter what system we come up with it will be gamed and people will complain it is not fair. Even in the current vELO there are flaws and there always will be.
People thought ZRS would be the holy grail and that it would stop sandbagging and other flaws the CE system had and it proved it didnt. Now everyone is asking for vELO and that will turn out the same. Perhaps a bit better, but still with flaws and gameable.
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Also that it doesn’t matter how good the underlying mechanics are if the implementation is flawed.
Any system is very unlikely to be perfect at first, it will need an ongoing commitment to refining it that ZHQ seems unwilling to provide.
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“People” really didn’t think that ZRS was the holy grail, especially when it was announced how it worked.
“People” were mainly asking for vELO from the beginning, that’s not a new request. No-one thought that was perfect, but it seems to be hugely better than ZRS - just to name one example, in taking into account of who you’re racing against, for a start.
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