Hey Zwifters, here’s a quick update on our work to improve the Event Leader Fence.
Why did we turn off thefence?
In certain situations and conditions, a non-trivial number of users were being removed from events, even though they were well behind the fence or the leader. In other words, even though some users were riding well, they were still getting removed. Since this is not a good experience for those users, we temporarily removed the fence feature from group rides.
When will we turn thefenceback on?
We have tracked down a few issues that we feel were impacting event fences and fixed those issues. We’ve also added telemetry specifically for fenced events to get more data if new issues arise. We will be turning the fence back on for select rides with the upcoming game release scheduled for the end of March. ZHQ will be actively monitoring the rides to evaluate the fixes we’ve put in place. Once we are confident that we’ve solved the issues, the fence will be made available to all rides that wish to use it.
As always, let us know if you have any questions or feedback on this or any other feature in Zwift.
The interesting piece to this puzzle, at least from what I have seen so far in the Forums, seems to be that the issue is not with the fence, per se, but with the ride distance Zwift is calculating for riders. It seems like the people having the issue are showing to have traveled more distance on the ride than the ride leader, even if they are behind the ride leader. That’s an odd one for sure. I actually see this on a number of rides, generally just 1/10th of a mile, but sometimes more, and have always wondered what causes this. Hopefully the issue has been pinpointed and the solution will work!
Yep I always have the least amount traveled when I spend more time off the back of the blob. The longer I spend sweeping, the shorter it tells me I have gone relative to the blob.
I had discussion with support about this.
I am running Zwift on a 2008 iMac core duo
Apparently the low frame rate 5fps, with a low res screen, could have been causing my extra distance wrt leader.
I was “hitting the fence” when behind the leader.
I do not get the problem if I ride using Zwift on iPad or iPhone.
Hi, Wes are we any closer to having the fence back? I seen various rumours about the next update it maybe back, I appreciate you guy have been working hard on it. Thanks
The plan is to turn the fence back on for select rides when the next game release goes out. We’ll be monitoring those rides to see how the fence behaves and performs. If the fixes we put in place are proven to be effective in reducing or eliminating improper event removal, we’ll turn the fence back on for all rides.
Reply to what, Kate? The answers, as best they are known at this time, are already stated above.
I will tell you that I was on one of the ‘new beta’ rides tonight and the fence was, IMO, worse than it was before. It was skipping all over the place and lots of people were getting the ‘RETURN’ message when well behind the fence. Clearly there is some more work to be done on this before it can be released into the wild again.
Thanks Mike, I had read the forum and the answers weren’t there hence my question.
Seems a rather rash decision to remove the fence impacting all group rides and leaders. Also surprised the leader community weren’t asked whether they would like to remove it or keep it whilst it is improved. The leaders trying to hold these rides together seem to be the ones most impacted.
There are very few group rides now that aren’t pulled apart by fliers off the front @Wes
