Important update: WTRL sent the following email on race day, January 24th:
On behalf of WTRL & Zwift, we regret to inform you that the much anticipated Segment Battle Point element of ZRL has been placed on hold and will not feature in Round 3. We know many people, including ourselves, were looking forward to this new element. The project has run into a number of unforeseen issues over recent days and the ZRL organizing team do not feel confident that it can be launched successfully at this time.
We greatly apologize for any disappointment this may cause you. Zwift Racing League will continue with the original formats and once we feel that everything is working optimally and accurately with SBP’s, we will look to run some test races later in the spring/summer.
In the meantime, we wish you success for the remainder of the Zwift Racing League Season.
WTRL, organizers of Zwift Racing League, have just announced the details of “Segment Battle Points” (SBP) – a new way to score in ZRL races. Since ZRL is by far the largest racing league in Zwift, and this is the first time the league’s scoring structure has been modified significantly, this is big news in the Zwift racing world.
I chatted with Martin at ZRL to make sure I understood the SBP concept completely, and to get his take on why SBP are a good addition to ZRL. Looking to understand all things SBP? Let’s dive in!
How Segment Battle Points Work
Here’s what WTRL says on their scoring page:
Starting in Round 3 of the 20022/23 season, all riders will score Segment Battle Points. The idea is to place several races within a race and will create plenty of points battles amongst groups of riders. You’ll need your wits about you to figure out who your rivals are to beat them.
- Every member of a team will receive a number 1 to 12.
- As racers signup for each points race, this numerical order will be converted to 1 to 6. (example: team members 2, 4, 5, 7, 8 and 11 sign up, they become 1,2,3,4,5,6 respectively for the race.
- This number correlates directly to the group of riders you will be battling for SBP points against.
- Group 1: Rider #1 from each team
- Group 2: Rider #2 from each team
- Group 3: Rider #3 from each team
- Group 4: Rider #4 from each team
- Group 5: Rider #5 from each team
- Group 6: Rider #6 from each team
- SBP points are awarded on the order of First Across the Line at each nominated segment within each group and are determined by the number of teams in the division:
- 16 teams in the division 1st = 16 points, 2nd = 15, 3rd = 14 etc with 16th winning 1 point per designated segment.
- 10 teams in the division 1st = 10 points, 2nd = 9 points, down to 1 point for 10th per designated segment.
- Where a team fields fewer than 6 racers, the team will not be able to compete for points available in those groups where they have no representation. I.e. a squad of 4 would not be able to win points in groups 5 & 6.
- A pre-race list of all signed-up rider groups for each division will be available here.
Digging Deeper
The explanation above raised some questions for me, so I chatted with Martin for clarification. Here are more details, in FAQ style.
How will the riders be assigned numbers 1-6?
WTRL will assign members of each team a number from 1-12 based on their own algorithms. Presumably (though WTRL isn’t saying this) rider #1 will be the strongest on your team, and #12 the weakest. No teammates will have the same number.
When your 6 team members sign up for a particular race, WTRL will assign them a number based on their ranking – basically numbering your race team 1-6, from strongest to weakest.
The takeaway here is that riders and team managers have no control over who gets placed into which number group. That is handled by WTRL’s algorithms, with the intention of creating 6 competitive SBP groups between the teams in the division.
How will I know who I’m up against?
WTRL will publish a list of all signed-up rider groups on their website. Of course, teams could always wait to sign up riders, or swap riders at the last minute. But my guess is most teams will have most of their riders signed up well ahead of time.
This will allow you to see which group you’re assigned to, and see the names of the other riders in your group. Those riders are your SBP competition for the race!
How are SBP scored if we go through the same segment more than once?
SBP are scored every time you go through a segment. So if you’re racing 6 laps of Lutece Express, that means 6 times through the Lutece Sprint where SBP will be earned.
In a division with 16 teams, a single rider who takes 1st place on all 6 segments would earn 6*16=96 SBP for the race.
Note: it’s possible that only certain segments will award SBP, although Martin thinks for ZRL Round 3 all segments that award FAL will also award SBP. If this changes it will be reflected on the race schedule.
Race Implications
SBP will certainly affect the way ZRL points races unfold. A few examples:
- No easy segments: you’ll be competing against your group on every sprint and KOM segment, so sitting up and conserving for the finish will cost you points.
- Fewer “FTS Slackers”: related to #1, SBP will cause riders to think twice before dropping from the front group to spin easy and only attack certain segments for FTS, since doing so will surely cost them in SBP.
- To bridge or not to bridge? If the pack breaks up into groups, you’ll want to know what groups contain your SBP competitors. Are they up ahead? You may want to push to bridge. Are they behind? Go to the front and keep the pace high so your group stays away and you grab easy SBP on upcoming segments! To the smart go the spoils. This adds a fresh element of strategy and intelligence to ZRL races, making a splendid use case for Sauce for Zwift‘s “Marked Athletes” feature.
- Rewarding well-balanced teams: with every team member competing for SBP against riders near their abilities we should see fewer race wins from “top-heavy” teams and more wins going to teams where all riders perform well in the SBP competition. This rewards well-rounded teams and makes it harder for teams with just 1-2 strong riders to take the overall win.
- More focus on segments: SBP will serve to further reduce the importance of finishing position, while increasing the importance of your performance on segments. For example: in race 1 of round 9, a team of six could theoretically score a maximum of 1110 points… and 432 of those points (38.9%) would be from SBP! (This assumes 12 teams in the division. SBP will decrease if there are fewer teams.)
Race 1 (Chain Chomper) Points Distribution
This chart shows the maximum points a team of 6 could earn in the race.
Of the points above, I think the first four are positives. But WTRL+Zwift may need to tweak SBP based on the last item, because races with a high number of segments and/or a high number of teams will end up with SBP making up the majority of race points, which is probably not the intention. It may be that WTRL will need to restrict SBP to certain segments in some races (including race #4 of this round, which features 8 segment attempts).
The Visibility Challenge
One challenge facing the implementation of SBP is the difficulty of seeing your competition in game. With no in-game indicators showing who is in my SBP group, how will I know how to ride strategically against them?
Sure, we can keep it simple: stay in the front group, and push hard on every segment. But even this strategy is flawed, because I can’t easily see which (if any) of my SBP competitors are also in the group. And what happens when I get dropped from the front group? How do I know which groups contain my SBP competitors?
There are some hacks racers will undoubtedly use. ZwiftPower’s live view lets you highlight multiple riders, then shows their location in the race, refreshing every 30 seconds. Sauce for Zwift lets you mark riders, then shows a near real-time view of their timings on course.
Those solutions may have to work for now, but in the future it would be nice to have better visibility in game. What if your group members were highlighted green in the rider list, like Meetup members? Or what if your group members showed up with numbered bibs or something else to make their avatars stand out?
There are lots of things that could be rolled out to improve the SBP experience in game, but for this round it looks like we’ll be experimenting with a basic version of SBP that rewards those who do some homework and implement hacks for improved battlefield visibility.
Wrapping It Up
In the end, I’m always a supporter of experimentation and innovation in the Zwift racing space. So I applaud WTRL for rolling out this change, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it unfolds. Game on!
Your Thoughts
What do you think of ZRL’s new Segment Battle Points? Share below!
I’m all for innovation too, but it seems like an extremely complex way to solve a simple enough issue. I guess they see the problem as people don’t have anything to fight for outside the top group. You have 2 tools already you could tweak to improve this: 1) weight FIN higher and have more variation – fighting for every last place matters. 2) Have FAL all the way down the list, this si something that the likes of Herd racing have down very successfully My view is that they have added a very complex 3rd tool, which requires WTRL… Read more »
I think what we really needed in ZRL is split categories but we got this instead.
ZRL has split Categories, just not enforced. But a team needs to have enough riders to field several split category teams, and across several timezones. Some clubs can have a C1, C2, C3 team in America Central, others may barely have enough to field a full team for just one Category. So ZRL now moves category teams up and down depending on where they placed in the previous seasons, and as long as teams stay the same from one season to the next, then the top teams will be in the first division, and the weaker ones will be in… Read more »
I agree. I think this is a really difficult solution for a very simple problem. If you race cat. B you need to improve from 3,2 W/Kg up to 3,99 W/Kg. That is a really big gap. If you split the competition in a B and B+ you have minor differences between the top competitors and the not so good riders.
Hopefully they will see this and make the right decision to race and to be an accountant on the road.
Even more advantage to the PC ukers, as Sauce is not available on all platforms
There are a few ways to use it on other platforms.
You can also run it on a different device than the one you’re racing on.
This is going to be very Interesting but from a DS point of view I have a fear confusion may rain….
Team Spokey-Blokes
Teams with a d.s. every week are definitely going to be at an advantage. Especially if they’re able to track last minute changes to the groups due to late sign ups (if I have to print out a list to have next to my bike – or figure out how to mark someone in Sauce – I’m going to have to do that at work, several hours before the race starts.
Like the attempt to try something different… however without tools to support the visibility issue its going to be tricky for most (obvs not me as I’m cycling around at the back anyway!). Roll on Round 3!!
This new scoring system relies on too many “hacks” to be considered for the final round of the ZRL.
Sauce in not available for mobile users and AppleTV users.
Horrible idea to introduce it now. Should have been added to some test events during spring and then added for real next season. This also affects teams compositions.
And why promote the need for something like Sauce which isn’t actually built into Zwift. When we are in Z3-Z4 racing away to remember the PHD we had to take to understand WTRLs scoring system and then recall that Billy Bob is your enemy and he is .. well who knows where is absolute nonsense.
Just throw out FTS and SBP, weight Finishing Points more highly and ta-da.. you have something that works and is comprehendable.
This is in one word – nonsense
I’m interested to see how it works. Seems like it would have been simpler to just combine the segment times for all six riders on a team (if you only have 5 or 4 riders, you’re ranked against teams with the same number of riders below those with 6) and rank based on total times. Or use the times of your 4 fastest riders (though that would let 2 riders sit out, which the battle points idea seems to be trying to avoid).
How do you mark riders in sauce?
I have the same question. I use Sauce but have never ‘marked’ other riders. I wonder if it has something to do with the nearby athletes feature?
nearby athletes, click on their name, click ‘mark’ near top right
I’ve gotten that far, but what do we do with that? Can you open an instance of “Nearby Athletes” that only shows the marked riders? I’d love it if it was possible to open a 2nd instance of the groups widget, but instead of showing gaps to the groups around me only showed those marked riders.
Yes and it is 👍. I have that one minimised but can alt-tab it back up when needed
To add, select ‘only show marked riders’ in settings for the window to achieve this
Is there a way to unmark all marked riders at once? Otherwise, I’m stuck with some riders who aren’t near me (or already left) when the race ends and I have to wait until we’re all in the pen next week to unmark them so I can set the next group of riders to mark for that week.
I seem to be in the minority by liking this idea. At least half our team usually grind themselves into the ground, only to be awarded some more or less irrelevant number of points. Whilst the top earners get 10 times as much.
This should mean that those off the front group who really squeeze all the juice out of themselves will get just reward.
Wtf is this mentality? It’s a race. Of course people who finish in the top 10 should get much more points than people finishing around 50.
On the other hand it’s nice that the people that get dropped from the front group still have more to race for than just the finish points.
You’re missing the point, or rather, the points (pun intended). ZRL is not scratch races, the format includes opportunities for various points and teams and riders adapt their strategies accordingly. You can certainly finish at the back having earned massive points, because the format allows it, and you can also finish top 10 without any FAL and FTS points. The expectation that points should be correlated to finishing position comes from tradition and mostly scratch racing, and we should recognize (and even embrace) the fact that ZRL is not that.
Yes I expressed myself pretty badly because instead of “top earners” I used “top 10”. Anyway the point by itself stands strong. Why the hell would you want there to not be a gap between those who fare well in a race (top earners) and those who don’t? This is not “everyone did their best so they get the same reward”. Also reacting to the second paragraph of Eddie’s post I am thinking more and more that it will not be the case actually. Yes, the people that weren’t getting many points up till now will be getting way more… Read more »
Yes, it’s a race. But with a totally arbitrarily determined categories. All those finishing in the top 10 gobbling up all the points would be at the back of the pack earning next to no points, if the category boundaries were moved slightly. (Sandbaggers aside).
So rather than just the same top-10-types always getting all the points, purely by the fact of where the artificial boundary is placed, it’s nice to have more points picked up by those unlucky enough not to have an ftp just below, but not over, the artificial cliff edge.
You’re not the only one, it’s just that the negative views get more engagement and tend to be more noisy. People will complain regardless of what WTRL does. I have a similar situation with my team, as most of the riders have FTP in the middle of the category instead of the top end, and they get dropped. This new format will make it way more interesting for them, who will now have a chance to fight for points in secondary groups, which will also exercise their sprint and recovery instead of just allowing them to finish the races in… Read more »
Do I understand correct: the team with the strongest riders, will now get even more points, as they will win all the SBP’s, as they will have the most riders in the leadgroup, (like it is now) who will win the SBP segments, only now with a 100% score.
I do not see any real improvement tbh, only more points to be won by the team with the strongest riders. So, what is new?
Not really. They are trying to put all those strong guys that finish in the front group in one SBP race group. Riders will be put on SBP with people ranked similarly to them.
For example.. if you finish in the back of the race, ideally, you should be racing for SBP with the guys around you.. keeping it more entertaining.
I think the issue that Kurai is expressing is that, in both seasons 1 and 2 of this year, there have been 1 or 2 teams in my division (not sure about Kurai’s division) that were able to get 4-5 riders in the front group at the end while each of the other teams only had 1-2 (or maybe 3 if everything fell right). Of course that super strong team was going to win the league regardless (they got promoted but another strong team from below filled their gap), but, on any given race, if you were able to be… Read more »
That’s not it. You will ride vs the rank from 1-6 from the other teams. In some divisions a team’s 4th 5th and 6th best rider is better than most team’s number 1 rider a and will automatically get maximum points every time.
This is exactly how I see it. Everyone will score some points but the people that didn’t score points before will score an amount of points that is irrelevant because the top people will score so many more points
Exactly this. The very strong riders ranked 5 and 6 win every time and might even get the most points.
Hmm, you never know we might be ranking buddies :-D
I like the thought that the WTRL guys are trying to even out racing but unless I am completely missing something this does not stop the sandbagging sprinters controlling the pack. Last season for me, I was regularly racing 4 riders from the same team, C Category riders, who sprinted at the start then back off controlling the whole group. There are a couple of groups form, usually after a sprint or short climb. These stronger riders then back off to control their watts. Surely this team will continue to claim all FAL points, all FTS points and now the… Read more »
Afraid you have a bit of a misunderstanding of how categories work. You absolutely can have C riders with much higher than 10wpkg sprints.
Also it’s a fallacy that all of these power profile riders are sprinting then managing their wpkg – they are much more likely gassed and need to rest up. Sure, some are capable of much more, but most aren’t.
I fully understand how the category works, unfortunately so do too many others. And possibly some are gassed and need a break, my point really is that this just gives those more points, so how does it help. And if they really wanted to catch the sandbaggers out they should do more longer climb sections in races to really see everyone’s 20 min 95% w/kg and power. It is also obvious when you look at results from the TTT races, those same sprinters are right at the top, but just inside category 🤔. This is not coming from a sore… Read more »
There are top 100 world ranked A+ riders with sub 4.0w/kg ftp, and 18+w/kg 15 sec power..
look no further than saris no pinz.
Personally, I’m a 4+w/kg ftp. And a 13 w/kg 15sec. I have nevvvverrrr beaten those sub 4.0 elites. Ever. 20 min power is nottt the full story my friend.
I think the word “most” is a stretch there. I don’t think many who can hit 10wkg in a sprint are really Slaine the Barbarian bodytypes who struggle to reach 3.3 for 20 minutes.
Sorry Eric, your comment about ‘scoring structure’ is slightly off. As with most Zwift racing ‘back then’ ZRL was originally just based on finishing points. When segment/points racing came about they jumped on the bandwagon like most of the others. This is just another evolution to that. But I see this as just another thing driving yet more new/semi-serious racers away from ZRL. Most of the rank and file (outside of the PL) will struggle with the complexity. Time and again ZRL have not addressed the main issues (of which sandbagging for segments is one of, split cats being another)… Read more »
ZRL has had segment points since the very first round. They’ve evolved a bit (I think only the top 5 scored, and it might have been only FAL or FTS?) but there were definitely intermediates from day 1.
Anybody have a link for a how-to for Sauce for Zwift’s “Marked Athletes” feature? I haven’t seen of that before.
If you purchased Sauce, then yo7 can join the private Discord Channel. You will find that there are users there with good knowledge and are helpful in setup and troubleshooting. The issue I have with the feature, when implemented is screen space. Likely, you are going to need to make your Zwift window smaller to place your Nearby Riders window to the side of it. There will be some shuffling about to look at the WTRL list, then jump back and forth to mark the riders in your group.
Seems like more complication when simplifying is needed… my feeling is simply to kill FTS points, 2x FIN points and go deeper on FAL points… but it seems like complexity is the order of the day. Hmmmm…
This 👆🏻
Exactly!
It seems to me it all boils down to letting mid-pack people also pick up points. I think it is unlikely that it will dramatically change racing behaviour for most people because (1) the majority in the mid-pack are already pushing as much as they can so they don’t get dropped yet they still do and (2) there is no way most people will have the bandwidth during a race to even identify “their opponents” in that particular race (who btw change from race to race). Most people will just keep pushing trying to go as fast as they possibly… Read more »
I think that the SBP idea is well worth trying but am concerned that it will advantage larger clubs who have the ability to field teams of 6 riders each and every week. SBP may be fairer if they were only counted for the top four riders (according to the WTRL algorithm) of each team.
Just do fal points from first to last. That will be easy to understand and fair for all as Zwift ranking points are easy to fiddle. Eg if you only do ttt with the odd race compared to tiny races every week. this is going to start people racing under new account so they are ranked low and will be against easy pairings. also get rid of fts points as it just promotes riding in z1 around the course and then a max effort and back to z1. Pointless for break aways. Zwift is trying to change the dynamics to… Read more »
I actually like the complexity of it. These races are fairly short and if you miss the front split then there really are not any more tactics at play unless you are able to compete for FTS points. Usually, each team has one or maybe two consequential riders and now all riders will have a stronger points role. Sandbaggers bother me too, but if you are racing within the rules then it isn’t really wrong. I wouldn’t mind seeing a finish time cutoff to put pressure on the FTS tailgunners.
This is a very interesting way to keep everyone engaged. In theory, a racer who gets dropped early and is mid-pack could still haul in a boatload of points against his/her group and be the team hero instead of settling for finishing position points only. I like it. But the visibility thing is definitely a problem, and next season will favor the teams who figure that out.
Eric, how do I highlight riders on the live ZP view?? Have you written an article about that?
100% agree … it will be very interesting & very complex in one (some DS’s will take a deep breath in TTT-weeks 🤣) … but in the end the performance of every single team member will become more decisive than before … team-depth will come more into play in this TEAM competition (but technical issues like internet dropouts will unfortunately cost many points 🙈). BIGGEST PROBLEM is the (non-)visibility of your personal SBP opponents … POSSIBLE SOLUTION : an assigned helmet colour for each SBP-group … #1-riders red helmet … #2-riders white helmet … and so on BIGGEST QUESTION is… Read more »
Haven’t written a post about it. Easy though: just click their name in the list
That I knew. But I don’t want to watch them, just keep track of them. And I understand I’ll need to keep track of one rider from each team. Do I just have to have a list of names next to me and filter them out from the list on the fly? I have enough trouble thinking on the fly already.
Presumably you’d get this set up in the pen? I obviously have never tried it.
Looks like in interesting change, and at least they are trying to be innovative and switch things up in ZRL races which is good.
In terms of the “visibility” issue for your SBP Group personally I’d like them to highlight the riders in your own group (so only you und your group would show with it when you are looking) by using something like the arrow that shows above Robo Pacers but maybe a bit smaller, basically a “halo” of sorts
Dear WTRL/Zwift…Sone polite thoughts. Have you thought that for the top teams their 4th,5th and 6th best riders as ranked by the Zwift algorithm will be considerably better than the best riders in other teams? As such they will get maximum Battle points in every section for every race. The top teams could conceivably win because of their “worse” (but still pro) riders scoring more points than their best riders as they gave lower competition that they can always beat, Imagine facing AERO and Ben Hill is rider 6. The other thing is that this algorithm does not take into… Read more »
I like the fact it gives the mid-pack racers more reward for their efforts. One specific question/comment I have is about what happens when a lot of teams have fewer than 6 riders? Say in a 12 team league there are 12 riders in group 1 and 2 (so 12 segment points for 1st) but only 6 riders in group 6. Then I think it is probably fairer if group 6 SBP could go from 6 (1st place) to 1 (6th place) rather than 12 for 1st place to 7 for 6th (i.e. last) place. Otherwise group 6 riders would… Read more »
SBP definitely incentivizes teams to field a full team! I like it the way it is now, because I don’t think riders on 6-person teams should be penalized just because other teams don’t field a full squad.
If I was the #6 rider and only got 6 points for my first place SBP effort I wouldn’t be thrilled…
My other thought is: teams that don’t field a full squad are basically setting themselves up to lose anyway. It’s always been that way. SBP just makes that even more clear.
Respectfully I’m a bit confused. Riders on 6 people teams aren’t penalized Eric. They get more points as it is unless I misunderstand you.
I’m replying to Sam’s proposal, which would reduce the number of points a rider could earn, if his SBP group was smaller than the number of teams in his division.
As I see it, race 1 is a 21% distribution for finishing points. Segments and battle points add up to 79%. I don’t see what you are wanting to achieve with this in any positive way. Yiu are ranking riders by position in their team not against the field for battle points. For the best teams riders 3-6 are better than most rider 1s. Leagues will be decided on lower number riders that have no challenge l and win almost every point. Lower ranked riders will likely do worse in the race, yet get more points. You have made a… Read more »
you are 100% right Ben. This is a very stange construct where absolute rider performance isn’t related to the points received, as the internal team ranking decides who you are racing. Imagin you are #3 in the team and win a segment within your group = max point, pushing yourself 100%. Imagin the exact same segment, just now the two best from your team are ill, and you race against BattleGroup 1. The chance you are winning in BG1 is less than in BG3. I can’t think of any other team sport where the individual scoring in this way is… Read more »
Zwift already has 5 colour categories to use. Get them to add one more for these races, and then it’s obvious who you are racing against.
As a mid-pack B, the concept works for me on the basis that my input is worth a bit more than very low finish position points. Would think a solution that reduces the relative weighting of the fts/fal points in the overall scoring vs. finish position points could also work.
Can’t understand all the debate. It’s just a GAME! not real racing! Real racing is done outside with a number on your back.
Can’t understand the debate about cheating in real racing outdoors! It’s just for fun! It’s not real life! The real world happens in business with a suit on your back and real money on the line!
This honestly feels a bit like Band-aid on a bullet wound. Zwift has had sandbagger issues for years but up untill last season it seemed like it was mostly just a few riders left & right. This season these numbers have absolutely exploded with as much as 2/3 of the field riding below their true category. Which only reinforces the issue because people feel justified racing below their true category because ‘everyone else is doing it’. Zwift Racing in it’s current state is “solved”. Almost everyone that races reagulary knows how to game the system. Although I admire this SBP… Read more »
Will there be a recalculation of grouping of a rider that has signed up doesn’t start the race. I.e if top ranked rider doesn’t start, will the second ranked by scores against other teams top ranked riders?
*be scored, not ‘by scores’
So what happened with this? I didnt see SBP in the results for this weeks race.. And no info on WTRL about it being delayed or cancelled? At least what I can find..
WTRL announced on Facebook that they were delaying the implementation of SBP until race 3. That came out on Monday.
Any word on whether they are using this today for Race #3? It’s not very clear.