In the Zwift Hot Topic series, each week we’ll bring up a popular discussion, controversy, question, or creative idea in the Zwift community. We’ll share a couple of different perspectives, but we want to hear your thoughts, too. So read on and chime in below!
Oh, the places Zwifters will go for a badge and XP! Some of us will ride up Box Hill 11 times for the PRL Full route badge, or around the volcano 25 times for a metric century that’s “On Fire!” They can motivate us to do things we wouldn’t try otherwise.
Achievement badges are just one of the incentives Zwift offers to keep us riding and coming back for more. We also have level unlocks, the Drop Shop, and monthly “Missions.” Challenges even come with a visual map of your progress and award a bike at the end.
But hang on – WHY do we still have a fourth Challenge slot?! It’s been there for years, taunting us with its little lock symbol. I’d like to see Zwift break that lock and do something creative!
Rather than distance or elevation, Zwift could add a Challenge that tracks total riding time. The “map” could depict lengths of time visually somehow, with a clock, calendar, or time-bound activities as checkpoints (“finished an average Tour de France stage” or “binged The Lord of The Rings extended versions”). The Everest challenge is harder to complete for slower riders, but this one would take the same time and effort no matter who you are.
I got this idea from a friend of mine. She wants Zwift’s incentives, like badges and Challenges, to become more inclusive.
Motivation for All
Steph Dannenberg: “Although Zwift does a fairly good job of being inclusive to women, there are a few things that they could incorporate that would make things like badge hunting more accessible. The minimum watts for a badge is 500, and the max being 1200 for extra credit top end. It would be neat to see some badges targeted for women.”
Women weigh less than men on average. We typically have less muscle mass, too, even for the same weight. That means our watts tend to be lower, so fewer of us are able to hit even the lowest power achievements.
That doesn’t mean badges like that shouldn’t exist. Many are listed as “Extra Credit,” meaning you’re not expected to earn them and they don’t show up unless you do. But for those of us with smaller power numbers, there aren’t more attainable goals to reach.
Some achievements should be very difficult to earn. There’s also a badge for doing your first U-turn. These suggestions are in the middle, rewarding effort while being more attainable for more people. Why not one for breaking 400 watts? And one for holding that 400 watts for 10 seconds? Or…
Steph Dannenberg: “Why not have badges be measured by w/kg instead of raw watts? (Author’s note: I would keep both.) Sure seeing those big values is rewarding, but, this would level the playing field. It could be applied to various segments and courses, and not necessarily be gender specific either.
Another example is the Alpe du Zwift sub-1-hour badge. To diversify and make for incremental goals for Zwifters, have a 70-minute and 80-minute time badge added to the game, thus giving an incentive other than gaining those precious meters towards the Concept bike.
Perhaps there could be badges earned towards other KOM/QOMs as well, time goals, or even average wattage goals.”
I love these ideas! This is gamification – making something rewarding and fun. It really does work for many people. I’ve seen Zwifters try harder to stick to workouts because they want every gold star, and the XP that comes with it.
Steph also suggested splitting segment leaderboards by age group along with gender. As someone who has been young and slow (and now a bit less of both), I usually don’t see the value in age groups. I know others do, though, and they say I will with time. If it helps motivate someone to get a PR on a timed segment, then I could be swayed…
Your Thoughts
What do you think? How could Zwift make its incentives better? I loved Eric’s “I Need More Carrots!” plea a couple of years ago. Here, I’m talking less about the carrots themselves and more about what we do to chase them.
Do you wish more badges were within your reach – or are there too many? What other kinds of achievements could Zwift incentivize? And please, give me your weirdest ideas for The Missing Fourth Challenge!
I m totally agree with you, I finished the extra badge since autumn 2020, fortunately I found other carrots but it should be nice to have something else to achieve
Splitting leaderboards by gender and UCI age groups would be nice. Topping your leaderboard and getting a jersey to show off would be great.As a 68 year old from the stone age dino its impossible for me to compete against all those youngsters!
Yeah agree. I’m well past my prime and getting things like sprint jerseys etc is almost impossible. I sometimes get them on a quiet less popular sprint route but usually someone comes along and wipes it out. Maybe having a ‘masters’ and ‘grandmasters’ jersey / categories (male/female) would also be good.
or age categories like U50 – U55 – U60
I respectfully disagree. I am going to be 62 in December. I had the Aqeduc KOM jersey this morning during a pace group ride. I do get an occasional sprint jersey, as well as being in the top 5 in most sprints when I contest them. It is all about your ftp/Vo2max. Age is just an excuse.
Age is not ‘just an excuse’, otherwise professional sports people would have careers well into old age, but most retire around 30-40s max (not an invite to quote an odd outlier as the norm).
I agree there’s nothing to say you can’t be fit well into old age (that’s why we’re on zwift), but it’s a well known fact that as we age muscle density changes and the available w/kg tends to be a narrower band. Just because you are a certain way please don’t assume everyone else is.
you must be blessed by God… I’m 42 and I can’t compete. It’s not about FTP or whatever. Age fades you muscles, period.
https://www.amazon.com/Fast-After-50-Joe-Friel-audiobook/dp/B07T9HFRNH/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=joel+friel&link_code=qs&qid=1688843924&sourceid=Mozilla-search&sr=8-1
That’s why the pro peloton is full of 50s. Don’t be silly, one thing is being fast at 50/60, other completely different is being FASTER than 20/30s.
Big fan of these fun incentives – have been wanting more route badges for ages, and more levels – this stuff would be so easy and would improve variety. Also route badges for the new climbs would be good – don’t think they are included? Route badges for medium length routes would be good – there are lots of short ones and a few super long, but more in the 2-3 hour category would be really good to help motivate for longer sessions.
Would really love to see more tours more often. They are a lot of fun and really do a good job in getting you into shape!. Very motivational for me!
how about a heatmap that shows all the roads you`ve covered throughout all the worlds and maybe different shadings for your popular ones, could do a badge when all world tarmac is covered
I like that idea! There could be rewards for riding all the roads once, riding them all 5 times, etc… though honestly, just seeing a heatmap might be enough to get me onto some roads I don’t normally take.
Why not making the forth challenge the ultimate challenge: The Equator Challenge – ride 40.075 km, once around the world. It would take an average Zwifter ten years, but well, it’s a challenge.
It’s certainly better than no challenge at all! Wonder what we’d unlock with that one… maybe a glowing kit that matches the Tron bike?
I enjoyed getting all the route badges, and now have a spreadsheet and cycle through all the routes for personal motivation. Not sure how hard it would be to program, but I would love Zwift to have a “reset” option. Maybe not for total km and elevation, but for all the routes, different achievements, etc. Would be great to be able to work through these all over again… and just keep cycling through them over and over…
Glad to see that I am not the only person that has made a spreadsheet to track their ride achievements.
I suggested on the forum they could add a ‘2x’ over the route badge and get a half xp bonus. Motivation to do the route twice. But this is only unlocked when all the routes are completed. When they add new routes, the user can’t add any more ‘2x’ overlays until the new routes are completed.
Tom, what if your could have a route badge multiplied ? x2,x3,x5 or x10 that would show up in your achievements. Or even on your jersey pocket as your ride that route (bragging rights)
Now along this line of thought. If your keen and you go for a complete second set of badges your permanently rewarded with XP points at 1.2. Go three times over 1.4.your get the picture.
Are there Zwifters out there that have 100x Alpe du Zwift ? Or 10x PRL full 😳
I like the idea of multiplying the route badges! Even if they come with diminishing XP (which they should), this would be a motivator that’s more than “one and done.”
Zwift need to fix the ‘Badges’ section to make 100% completion possible, which would be an additional motivational factor. My badges window tells me that 195 ‘Achievements’ are available. My current total is 168, which is 100% of all cycling badges. But the overall total includes 27 running badges. Only a tiny percentage of Zwifters run on the platform but the current system prevents anyone who has no interest in running to achieve 100%. By all means have a joint total for anyone participating in both sports. But keep the overall total for single-minded cyclists (and single-minded runners for that… Read more »
I use Zwift to run also. I still couldn’t even get all of the running badges if I tried. While I am not quite at the 5min mile badge pace, my treadmill maxes out at 5min per mile (12mph), but in reality it just gets to about 11.95mph. Oh well.
Yeah, I imagine that sub-5 would be difficult. But at least that badge and the marathon badge are ‘hidden’ from the overall total so you could still hit 100% if you can manage a sub-6 mile along with the normal running badges. Not an option if you don’t have a treadmill!
A large percentage of people earning the 1200w badge did so thanks to software bugs, electrical power surges on trainers, or from badly calibrated (or bad firmware) trainers.
Achievements as onboarding VS teaching people what a realistic power output might be so that they don’t feel comfortable cheating by mistake or cheating on purpose.
I was gutted when I got the 1200W badge (and all the other power ones) from a calibration bug. I was able to reset my power curve, and hit the milestones for most of the others over time, but I know in my heart I shouldn’t have that badge. Close to it but not properly achieved.
I rarely look at my achieved badges & practically never pick a certain route to get more. All of them were earned by accident. Except one – the Tron. It should not be an award for lifetime but require a yearly renewal. At least visible glories readily recognized by other riders should be time limited & will raise motivation not to lose. This said, the finisher of the 4th challenge should be rewarded with a time restricted bonus noticeable by everyone, e.g., personalized kit or frame, or even combined w/ some fee bonus.
i want more unlockable kit and jerseys and hats and stuff. and no, i am not going to wear them.
but as a gamer, i like collecting unlockables. even if they are ugly i dont care. like i will literally do rides and races i have no interested in just to get the unlock. and if there isnt one or i already have it, i’ll just free ride. badges dont really do it for me
like would it have killed them to give us a different color Avec Femmes hat?
Agreed – unlocking kit is a massively undervalued motivator. But as I have said elsewhere, if they made it realistically possible to attain 100% completion with achievements I think many ‘gamers’ would also enjoy this feature more.
To be fair to Zwift(not a phrase I utter very often), they did release a ‘23 version on the WTF cap, it appeared in my garage today.
Agree, age and gender recognition would be great, and please bring in challenge #4
Women all for equality until they can’t achieve something. There are many women who are far stronger cyclists than a lot of men. If you want the badge earn it. Asking to make things easier completely goes against the equality argument.
Very few people want equality. The grown ups in the room have been pushing for equity for a few decades now. Try and keep up please.
But they are happy to have women only events. Don’t want the men entering those. No men only events. Equity works both ways.
A great example would be track and field events. The women athletes use smaller and lighter shot puts and javelins to compensate for their smaller structure and lower muscle mass. It also creates a more even spectacle for the fans. The ideas in the argument are simply asking for a similar adjustment.
More…
more of all badges
and achievements.
Hard and easy.
Men and women.
Age groups.
Challenges.
Just more!
I’m a massive jersey hunter above all, but I will go for some badges if they’re there – but I won’t mind so much if I don’t get them. They’re not like Strava or Garmin where you can share them or see the stats relating to each one – it’s just a little graphic hidden away in a menu which I rarely look at. Give us more unlocks!
Instead of adding a lot of extra badges which would kinda dilute their individual value, there could be gender or age group specific badges. Another option would be different levels to a badge like the one for Alpe du Zwift. For some people, finishing that climb in 80 minutes is a big achievement that should be acknowledged. For others they get the badge on their first trip up before they even know there’s a badge for it. The latter happened to me, therefore the badge wasn’t anything special. I would have been thrilled to be rewarded for my first sub-40min… Read more »
I don’t lose 1 second thinking on it. I really don’t mind about badges or whatever. It’s me. What I’d be motivated though, would be a better classification system. I know this is a broad and something polemic topic, but in my case I fell that Zwift reading is completely off the charts. I’m 70kg 260 FTP. I’m categorized as “B” but its impossible to ride with the “B” guys. All top 5/8/10 guys make the same, or quite close time, as the “As” so I really do not think the categories are well divided. Bottom line, no point in… Read more »
I’d make the fourth challenge an “explorer” challenge – similar to in the Truck Simulator games – based on the percentagesl of rideable/runable roads/paths/tracks you’ve traversed in either one or all worlds.
A 70 and 80 minute badge for the Alpe should not be implemented. The sub-1 hour target should stay a goal to work towards.
If you can beat the challenge within 70 of 80 minutes, yes, that is good. But it does not warrant a Zwift achievement.
When are they going to add more bicycles, wheels and etc. to the garage? I still have a rim brake Madone and about 5M droplets i cant spend on anything