Appreciate the work that is going on to fix what was a problematic system. I do think you need to do a complete seed reset tho as it will just shuffle people into their correct grades.
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I really hope ZwiftHQ replace the 10min seed score power at the same time as removing 30sec power, to something in the 4-7min ballpark, because such a duration high effort is more likely to happen in a wider variety of races.
Simply removing 30sec will mean the seed score formula will require a tweak, if the Racing Score scale will remain at 0-1000.
As above, after the formula tweak, we should all have our Racing Scores adjusted rather than a long drawn out process of some racers slowly falling towards their new seed score through more poor results.
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Based on Ryan’s statement, it doesn’t sound like 30s is being removed. Instead more data points are being added. Obviously we are just reading tea leaves here like investors parsing the comments of a central bank administrator.
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‘Alternative’ implies removing it and adding others, otherwise it would have said additional. Honestly, Zmap always felt like a good place to start…just based on common sense.
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Pretty funny that after all of this, everyone (hopefully including ZHQ) is coming around to realizing zFTP and zMAP are actually good for something.
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Want to see what is wrong is with ZRS - we never got past the seed discussion to look at how poor the actual scoring is…
@Ryy wss the idea always to allow users to pick their own category to race in?
I can share the user if needed but here’s the example of a rider winning 9 on the bounce in the same category and then losing to reduce their score and do it all again.
All races in D pen. 180-350
|Win 1|+20|
|Win 2|+12|
|Win 3|+10|
|Win 4|+9|
|Win 5|+8|
|Win 6|+10|
|Win 7|+8|
|win 8|+10|
|Win 9|+13|
|last place (14th)|-38|
|Second place|+9|
|Last place (6th)|-21|
|Last place (9th)|-9|
That is diabolical. If users can crash their score at will to stay in a pen all the issues of CE will be repeated with people managing their performance to stay at the top of category and the jump from one to the next will be so big, people will actively avoid it.
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Seeing some riders doing this in most races particularly in the tiny races .But to win 9 races in a row and stay within the pen his score must have been towards the bottom of the pen to start with?
Started with around 100 points head room after all that is about +30 on his starting position. So has a 70 point headroom still.
I’m not going to specifically out the rider at present… No need to do that.
The system is broken, the rider is a user. If zwift hq want it I will…
First 2 I checked were community races with +30 riders in zwiftpower, so probably 40+ in reality.
Well in pen E, a win without imporoving your seed score seems to give you 7 points… And that includes bonus points for being on the podium!
Did we ever decide if the points was fixed by pen name (more for same placing in A), or the average pre-race score of some/all of a pen?
I’m guessing a win in pen D is 9 or 10 points?
none of the scores are fixed. neither are the podium bonuses
The biggest problem with CE was lack of promotion for winning race after race after race. vELO, which is objectively the best system that exists for Zwift by a mile, uses five minute power as a seed which is close enough to zMAP at six minutes. If it has to be further Zwiftified then adding zFTP to the algorithm isn’t so bad.
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CE had three fundamental problems.
Using w/kg and a watt floor for categorisation gave an advantage to the heaviest and lightest riders over those in the middle of the range.
The category boundaries were fixed.
There was no mechanism to upgrade riders who could consistently win races without going over category limits.
ZRS uses a compound score based seed, which should be better. But the inclusion of the 30s element has caused more problems than it solved.
The default category boundaries are still fixed, but at least it’s easier for community organisers to use different boundaries.
There is a mechanism to upgrade consistent winners, but the same mechanism also upgrades repeat upper-mid pack finishers. It also allows people to downgrade themselves, seemingly more easily than upgrading.
Using zMAP for seed in ZRS is in no way a defacto CE, simply because ZRS will use a modified compound score rather than w/kg.
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All it will do is bring over the category standings from CE - Riders for the most part will be grouped as they were A-D due to all having similar 5 min power due to zmap boundaries.
Using 5min will again favour heavier riders - reason being, there are very few 5min plus climbs in races so the group will climb together, and then on the flat the heavier riders have the raw power to control the race.
The one thing with the current range of power in races, it’s not confined to the CE artificial zmap boundaries that riders wouldn’t cross for fear of upgrade - so you have these splits when hills come around. (With ZRL still using CE metrics there are plenty of riders who won’t break those limits and then complain about being dropped in ZRS races - numerous have posted or been mentioned in this thread)
Basically using zmap is keeping the status quo - a few months back CE was broke, now people are suggesting we go back to it. The things you mention regarding it’s faults confine it to the bin…
Your mate who has posted in this thread numerous times around the unfairness of ZRS had a pretty close run at it
He has the audacity to complain about a system that makes it a little more challenging.
So we are agreed CE is inherently broken. Let’s not go back.
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All three of your points are addressed by adding a results-driven adjustment to someone’s score.
The ZRS seed algorithm is so broken that no one has even grasped that it’s supposed to be a results-driven system. If the results side works then the seed only needs to be good-enough, which zFTP and zMAP are.
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If he had won 100 in a row with CE that does not preclude him from pointing out having Cat D’s racing Cat B’s in ZRS is not fair, maybe in the future he could email you what he is going to post and you could let him know if it is alright to post it?
“Audacity” 
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i can’t beat them, and zwift has me as C.
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And yet people took this “better system” and removed promotions for a given series allowing people to wreck the experience for everyone else by dominating categories.
Maybe the issue is the organisers and racers that are going to game anything put in front of them
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