I’ve honestly lost track of what they are doing…nor do I really care anymore. They never really implemented the action plan that kicked off this thread two years ago and any other efforts to address sandbagging have been superficial, at best (IMHO).
I think they also need to make a distinction between being able to “hang” in a category and being “competitive”.
Here is the current method:
Short version of new method: They have been testing a new method “Category Enforcement” which looks at the riders entire power duration curve to calculate Critical Power (CP) which is typically lower than FTP. Maximum Aerobic Power (MAP) is also calculated and VO2 estimated from the MAP. Both CP and MAP/VO2 have category breakdowns. You get put into the higher category of the two if different. Note, this method looks at all Zwift rides over the last 60 (?) days, i.e, races, workouts, solo rides, group rides, etc…
Initially there were test events (Feb ??), but now some of the race organizers have started making their events category enforced using the new method.
To what end? Not saying you, but it seems some think that everyone should be competitive and/or have a chance to win in every race. That’s nonsense. Real life racing is the same. There is the pointy end and then there is pack fodder.
I’d love to see Zwift dynamically split fields in to categories per event rather than stick rigidly to certain categories based on FTP (or whatever). If you have 100 people sign up, use all your knowledge of those riders (FTP/CP/VO2/MAP you name it, but also results in previous races) to try and make 4 fields of 25ish who will have a good race. Or at least have that option for organizers if some racers insist on only racing in B or whatever.
And in “real life”, those at the pointy end who keep winning get moved up. Those that perpetually remain in a category just to chalk up wins are considered sandbaggers.
Why should Awift be any different?
What I don’t understand and never have is what are people actually winning? Sandbaggers or not?
I have only raced a few times and the workout alone was what I won but that is just me.
Self worth I suppose 
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I have the same approach, personally….it is about the workout for me.
But Zwift is heavily invested in eRacing, and at the highest end of the sport, there is a rainbow jersey up for grabs. Given that, it seems Zwift should be doing what they can to eliminate a complaint that has plagued the platform since Day 1 when they started racing.
True and I am ultra competitive with most things. Racing virtually I am not as I know where I stand irl with the group I ride with.
Until Zwift implements some type of rider based ranking system that doesn’t rely on power curve, but rather race placement, they will continue to spin their wheels in creating an online competitive system that is actually functional.
There is a reason why KDA ratios aren’t the primary input to ranking in most online games that involve objective accomplishments.
This is 2005 level stuff and it confuses me why they aren’t willing to do what is obvious.
Yep. If they could implement it it would take a few months for things to shake out and then you’d have a great system in place. Always have the weight doping cheaters but you have those now… at least this would help reign in the sandbagging.
Imagine that, using merit for ranking. Who would have though? As for weight doping, simple implementation of human physiology would have taken care of most outrageous abuses. To say they are too creative is giving them too much credit. They want and encourage cheating. It elevate the platform to much higher level as seemingly pros are using it for racing.
What leads you to this conclusion?
I think it’s probably more like cycling and baseball in the 90s or college sports recruiting (both in the US). They are aware of the cheating but figure it’s too easy to do and hard to stop and the field will level itself.
I don’t think they WANT it.
Money
How does cheating make them money? I’d think rampant cheating would be a turnoff and cost the subscribers.
Does Zwift turn a profit or is it living on speculation? What drives the interest? Is it more valuable when all the corner are stuffed? When you organize a race, do you make more money when the participation is 100 or 10000? If the cheating is IRL is as easy as changing a wheel (now it’s an ebike) and when confronted you say there’s no cheating and keep it going while selling “ad space” and use it to justify a higher valuation, is that for money? That’s just a rudimentary example. Be creative.
ZADA is not 3rd party any more. And they focus on Premier League (presumably due to resource prioritization.). But in general I agree with your assessment, enforcement = less customers as they’ll be forcing out some number of customers due to willful cheating or dodgy equipment. They want to maximize customer base and retention and restricting people from racing or certain group events due to dodgy setups is not favorable to that. Sure they pop the occasional ZPL level person but unless its blatant nothing seems to happen.
Have people read the 1k+ post threads on the zwift forums about cheating related topics, such as sticky watts, irregular pedaling techniques, etc.? Not much progress being made.
Look, I get why they are not incentivized to stop cheating. But what the other poster said was that they want cheating because of money, and that doesn’t make sense to me.
