100% got to keep progressively getting stronger and faster, but I honestly feel that with autocat it is not a case of move up and immediately get dropped until you can push the top w/kg in the category.
Is there a thread somewhere that explains why there is not just a point-based category system like physical events? I hope I did not open a can of worms with that question.
Currently we don’t know how auto cat works, there was mention of w/kg, 20min power 5 min power and race time. They test different things each week. More info here
This is an interesting one to read.
Well that really is the tl;dr version of several long threads now. I don’t disagree with any of the bits of your post that I didn’t quote either 
Results-based ranking is both necessary and (almost) sufficient for fair racing. This statement is amenable to mathematical proof, under some fairly simple and reasonable assumptions (eg what is meant by “fair”).
What’s particularly disappointing about the situation is that others have been pointing this out for literally years, long before I’d even started zwifting. And I know enough people working at tech companies to know that they are not all stupid, so they have also known this for years. The reason they haven’t fixed it is that they don’t want to fix it.
Autocat is a distraction based on a false premise, that “better” categorisation based on rider biophysical metrics will fix the problems. It won’t.
Results-based ranking is both necessary and (almost) sufficient for fair racing on Zwift.
(The reason I add the “almost” in the above is that it would be possible to implement a results-based system such that it was still unfair, if you really wanted. But it doesn’t take much extra effort to avoid this.)
I fear you are right.
Whenever they mention that racing is on their agenda and that they intend to look into it Zoon (these moves are always interspersed with periods of complete silence or a “racing will remain as is for now”), even though I know it is a sucker punch I still get suckered in by these moves. Every time. Then I remember that it is just part of a bigger pattern that keeps repeating itself indefinitely, like some sickly green floral wallpaper of misery. And if that is so (and it is, you come to understand that having been zwifting for a while), then there has to be an underlying reason. And, as you say, it is not very likely that this reason is that they just plain suck and completely lack the skill set to extract thumbs out of orifices. No, it has to be something else. And then you suddenly remember that this is, after all, a company where even the CEO and founder has been caught sandbagging on occasion. Then it dawns on you (again):
W O R K I N G A S I N T E N D E D .
Which translates to:
T H E Y S I M P L Y D O N ’ T W A N T T O .
And then you bury your childish dreams of fun and fair racing, a little deeper every time. But you keep pestering them anyway. Because you feel cheated on. And you are cheated on. In every race and beyond.
It breaks my heart to see people getting cheated. A weak spot of mine. People getting mistreated, I just can’t take it. They never lost any sleep over it. They’re a different breed.
I’m with you on this. I’ve had some races where I haven’t had a chance and some where classification has been ok. I know some people’s experiences have been better and others worse than mine.
I’m also surprised there’s no ability to grade the races and comment on them, like you get with Futureworks activities. If you leave it for people to only feed back if they want to, you’re only likely to hear from an unrepresentative minority.
Good point, why isn’t the autocat work sitting in the Futureworks department?
A coupla things:
I’ve started a thread for Stage 7: Twice up The Baloney
And all this yapping about The Autocat and how the new cats are going to do this or that is just that: Yappin’. I’ve done one series of racing with race entry cat enforcement on Zwift and it was amazing. At the time I was at the pointy end of C and for the first time, I managed to hang with the lead group for the entire event as we were all C cat racers. It was obvious there were no A’s or B’s in the event because the most were putting down powerwise was within the C cat limits.
Instead of fooling (NOT the word I was thinking of) with Autocat, let’s give the current category system a chance to work with entry cat limits. Thus far my experience with Autocat has been just like having a bunch of sandbaggers in the race because it’s so fouled (NOT the word this time either) up.