Hey Zwifters, here’s our update from last week’s post about upcoming changes to ZRS.
Our simulations and validations are wrapping up on the new seed formula, and we are excited to share more information about what the rollout will look like. Our main goal with updating the seed formula is to improve the accuracy of the starting point that new racers have when first getting started with racing using their Zwift Racing Score. Additionally, since this value is used to calculate a Zwifter’s floor, or minimum score, we also want to ensure that this mechanism will still create a protection from intentionally lowering a score to enter an unfair subgroup.
The rollout will involve applying the new seed formula and then immediately reprocessing historical ZRS race results since the last score reset on Sep 25, 2024. This means the race result history will be rewritten as if everybody had raced with the new seed formula. Because we are taking this approach to reprocess (and not reset), individual racing progress will not be lost.
From our simulations, most Zwifters should expect their score to change. Once the reprocessing is complete, we expect scores to change less than 100 points for a majority of Zwifters. Since one of our main goals of this change was addressing inaccurately seeded racers, some may see scores change even more due to being inaccurately seeded with the old formula. A promising result of our simulations is we expect far fewer Zwifters to be sitting at their floor.
It’s important to note that since everybody’s score is shuffling, a score increase or decrease doesn’t mean racing will be harder or easier. Racing subgroup difficulty will be relative to where others landed, but the main goal here is to ensure the groups feel fun and competitive.
And because everybody’s score is shuffling, we will be revising our standard category ranges in Zwift events starting January. The overall score distribution is not changing drastically though, so we are comfortable releasing the V2 seed formula ahead of that adjustment.
More to come next week as we get the rollout started, including more information about what elements are included in the V2 seed formula and how we developed it!