Incorrect seeding does have ramifications but as long as the racing score is allowed to freely move, the incorrect seed score will have a negligible effect on ZRS.
Remove seed floors and monitor sandbagging with other measures.
Time to move on from seeding.
Is ZHQ going to start promptly addressing flagged riders?
Make flagging riders an easier process.
Scores of 280, 215 and 253 are basically say the same thing about your power.
The 3 scores put you in the same race group.
The difference in scores demonstrate how well you placed against other riders
The scores do not predict the FTP of the other riders.
If you are comparing your score to someone who was CE cat C, then you are already comparing apples to oranges
I have been a fan of changing boundaries in the past. But now Iām not sure, given that the scoring changes are not ELO based.
Just a hypothetical, that seems possible today.
You enter a HerD Beginner Race in Cat C with a score of 230. You should do well in this eventās C cat which is defined as 170-240. As a result you race and do well and get a score increase.
OTOH, in a Zwift standard event you would have been on the lower end of the D Cat (180-350) pen, and typically wouldnāt expect to see score increases when racing in such.
So wondering if the pressure needs to be to get Zwift to have standard, but more cats (8 ?). Or alternatively, to avoid differing pen barriers, that Non-standard events option to offer a Low vs High event, where each Std cat is split to 2 cats that between them use the same score boundaries.
E pen 0-180 splits to 2 cats, eg 0-100, 100-180
D pen 180-350 splits to 180-240 and 240-350
etc. At least this way thereās some commonality.
Iām not sure how the new system will play out.
In the old CE, cat C was FTP 2.5 - 3.1 so one could predict that if 2 riders of same weight in cat C with FTP of 3.0 and 2.6, the rider with FTP of 3.0 was the stronger rider.
Iām not sure the new system allows the same certainty of predictions.
Until we get 30 or more races done, a score of 230 doesnāt mean increased chance of winning compared to a score of 190.
I hope that they will adjust the category boundaries sooner than in January. Many races in ZRS-B look like ghost town compared to the crowd in C-E.
Just seems making a complicated system.
5 levels each level requires X points from racing results for promotion.
Once you move up a level, no falling down a level
Watts/wkg/weight brings quite a few issues over a set 90 day period
The race I did yesterday, Outta 24 stage 2 was:
A. 7
B. 28
C. 46
D. 93
E. 18
Total was 192.
The top cats are tough.
Just like IRL , there are people who really are the fastest or strongest and no matter how you divide the field, they still win.
People have suggested fewer cat a races to try to increase field size.
I wonder if a handicap system might eventually be implemented for community events to eliminate the ghost towns.
Thereās so much they can do but assigning a results based score is the first step.
Experience will tell.
Maybe go down slower than you go up, maybe stay up for the season or so many days?
It could play out lots of ways.
I like seeing the potential flexibility.
Right now itās fun because of the chaos of everyone getting settled in.
Maybe the chaos is what is fun.
The A could easily go down to 600 and B to 500, or maybe 475. It would make the lower cats closer as well.
For background, I am CE-C with seed score of ~450 and recent race results put me to ~550. I intend to stay at this score as long as I can 
.
I was CE cat C with FTP 2.9-3.0 wpk.
My seed score was V1 194, v3 Iām at 253.
We were in the same old cat but are vastly different.
Iām not winning my current races but I am working hard to get in the top half.
Seeing my score increase has become a ārace with in the raceā for me.
Under the old FTP CE, I was a strong C bordering on low B but couldnāt quite effectively make the jump.
ZRS V1 initially put me in the 520-690 range where I was getting lambasted every race, dropped in under 10 minutes, even on flat routes. Thankfully I was close enough to the category border where poor performances dropped me back a category where I could compete for a few races until getting bumped back up again. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Enter score restructuring.
ZRS V2 had me solidly in the 350-520 pack at around 411 score. Got one race in, and it felt very much like the old CE system where most people sat in until the final sprint. Granted, it was only one race, so who knows how it would have played out, but it felt like the same old, same old.
Now that we quickly have V3, Iāve gotten two more races in (both on Going Coastal with the Straight Outta ā24 series). My own score didnāt change at all with the tweaks, but it must have brought in some stronger folks that can hold a steady power. Vastly different experience. Feels faster, there have been more attacks, and my average wattages these past races have been higher. I used to be able to sit in and average at 2.8-2.9 w/kg. Yesterday and today had me at 3.2-3.3. And I love it. Challenging enough without being impossible, and both races this weekend had breakaways that made the podium. Brings a new variety and strategy to the racing that wasnāt there prior.
At least thatās my experience this week. Itāll be interesting to see how this plays out on hillier courses like Loop The Loop in the Zracing series. Itās a course that has traditionally handed me my ass, but I could still hold the front reasonably. Where Iām now scored mid category and am 85.3kg, Iām not sure thatāll happen. If I finish mid pack, Iād guess I can move toward thinking the score predictions are reasonable. We shall see.
Either way, the score adjustments have been positive on my end. Now the category boundaries changing in January might throw that off, but for now, Iām enjoying the fresh take on racing currently.
The new version seems improved for me. A former 2.75 C coming back after a break and 10lb heavier. Races were all time trials with a group of 12 having no draft groups at all and several dropping out. Winners 3.8 W/kg and last place 1.9 W/kg.
I was way overrated (270s) because I have an ok 30 second burst, but was always solo by 60 seconds into the race. Since the update and a few races I started dropping (I guess you have to finish some lonely, dead last events to decrease?) as low as 149 and currently 186. The burst should be a much smaller factor than the 5 minute power because those with high 5 min W/kg will just blow up the draft at will. Very fair, but itās just not engaging for anyone when you have 2.3s 5 minute W/kg and 4.5s racing each other. If you have 2.9s and 3.3s, but you donāt know whoās the climber, who can keep up with your attack, whoās the sprinter, and who can take off with 3k to then you have some strategy involved, some competition and more riders racing/gaming.
Compound score is correlated to race results irl
And anyway, it only is used for seeding then you will move depending on your results.
Part of the implied value of scoring, is that not being an idiot is helpfulā¦ Intelligent racing can and should be more productive.
Two concepts:
Only time you raise your score based on 5 min power in a race would be if you set a new best seed score during the race and it is above your current race score?
I think the biggest issue remaining is gaining points for being in the top half which means people will end up promoted for a mid pack finish which is pretty silly.
That would be fine with dynamic matchmaking. Itās a total mess with fixed pen ranges.
I canāt disagree with that.
But hopefully seed calculation is more sensible now with the adoption of zrCS at its basis, meaning that now Zwift can start looking at the actual scoring based on race finishing position. It seems clear thereās a long way to go on that, but hopefully progress will start to be made.
Yeah, but the amount of points awarded is pretty low. I finished just above middle in an event yesterday, and I think I only received around 1-2 points. Yes, I suppose that could be the difference between 1 cat and the next for some people right on the edge, but at least itās scaled. I assume someone finishing just below the midpoint, likewise only sees a decline in score by similar 1-2 points.
vELO is better than what theyāve got but both run into the same issue of people clustering around boundary lines. Dynamic pen assignment is crucial at this point and Iām going to go out on a limb and assume that will be a very heavy lift.
I came in 14/60 yesterday and gained 4 points. Right now movement is slow enough that it might as well not even exist and we could just stick with zrCS categories.
No matter what this whole exercise is suboptimal without dynamic pen assignments.