Pace bots (or Pace Partners) are a new “Future Works” (read: beta) feature available to the general riding population of Watopia right now on Zwift. I’ve been meaning to give them a try for a while, but they had a bit of a rocky start and were offline the last time I wanted to try out this new feature. Fortunately, those initial teething bugs have been worked through, and now we have four almost always active Pace Bots riding around Watopia, essentially giving us “always on group rides”.
The bots ride at a set pace, and as above, there are four to choose from:
- Diesel Dan (1 – 2.4 w/kg): Casual-paced group ride with a few gentle hills.
- CoCo Cadence (2.5 – 3.1 w/kg): Moderately-paced group ride with occasional hills.
- Bowie Brevet (3.2 – 3.9 w/kg): Expert-paced group ride with frequent climbs.
- Amelia Anquetil (4+ w/kg): Elite-paced ride on a challenging route. Many tough climbs!
Getting involved is easy enough: Choose “Watopia” as your map choice, and then you should see “Join a rider > Pace Partners” as an option.
As soon as you select a pace partner, you are dropped into the game and given 5 seconds of assisted pedalling whilst you spin up to speed and then it’s up to you to keep up.
Whilst you keep up, you slowly build up a bar which leads to an increase in “drops” – the in game currency you use to buy bikes and wheels and other virtual tat. I’m not sure exactly how long you need to stick near a bot to build each bar, but every few minutes you get another multiplier. So initially you’re riding at 1x your drops (aka normal), then 1.2x, then 1.4x, and so on. If you’re a gear hunter, this is an efficient way to build up your bank.
The bots are fairly easy to see, with each one being colour coded. I tried Diesel Dan, and CoCo Cadence. Dan is yellow, CoCo is blue. I’m not sure of the colours of the other two, though I do know one is green. If you know Zwift from days of old, where blue virtual rider bots would pedal around Watopia, then they look very similar.
The Bad
Being Zwift, there are some … quirks.
There were three issues that I spotted.
One was CoCo cadence would occassionally say “v”. That’s it. Seemed to me like someone at Zwift made a mistake when doing a copy / paste. Which highlights issues with their QA process (or lack thereof), and isn’t the first time I’ve seen typos in official Zwift stuff.
That said, I can forgive typos.
What is more frustrating are two UX / UI issues.
Firstly, the whole aim is to keep within 10m of the pace bot. Ideally you’re well within 5m, and I think the on screen display prompts you to get closer if you drop below 7m from the bot. This happens whether you are behind the bot, or in front of the bot.
Seems reasonable.
What is daft, however, is the UI they present is the same whether you are in front of, or behind the bot. It’s hugely misleading. Why they can’t flip the cyclist and the bot icon around depending on whether you are ahead of behind seems really silly to have slipped through any user feedback testing.
Secondly, the CoCo cadence in particular suffers from being too popular. You may or may not know, but Zwift will only ever display, at most, 100 riders on the screen at any one time. This is great in big group rides as it stops your computer from dying, trying to render 1000’s of riders pretty much needlessly.
Which riders get hidden isn’t, seemingly, based on distance from you. In order to keep things looking fairly busy all over, Zwift seems to take a more scatter based approach. Removing clumps of riders close to you, sort of middle distance, and then more from further away. This works great on normal rides.
However, no one at Zwift seems to have thought that making the bots exempt from this rule would be sensible.
So I frequently found myself in a position where CoCo could be close to me, or further away, but I had no idea as I couldn’t see her. I could, if I looked at the mini-map – hard to see from the bike from ~6ft away – but the blue rider bot was nowhere on screen, until *pop* she would appear again, either a long way ahead, or behind me.
It made the whole thing a total crap shoot at times. And around the time I’d built up a 2x drops multiplier, I lost the bot because of a combo of the above two issues. Really frustrating.
The Good
It’s easy to rag on Zwift. But the fact I keep turning up shows they are doing something right.
A big part of Zwift, for me, is the social aspect. Sadly, I do not have anyone to ride with in real life. And as the nights are drawing in (winter is coming, watch you head, Ned), Zwift and comparable programs are there to fill the gap for me, and hundreds of others.
Getting in a big group ride would typically require a bit of forethought. First you need to be on at a specific time, and second you need (or ideally, want) to stick around for the full scheduled duration – be it an hour or whatever.
With the pace bots, both of these problems are solved. Jump on at any time, and if my experience was anything to go by, there’s going to be a large group of riders all around the bot, creating an impromptu, always on group ride, at a steady pace. You have no commitments, can drop out at any time, or pick up with the bot if you just so happen to be in the right place, at the right time, as the herd thunders past.
The Summary
I like it. Conceptually, it’s great. The implementation could do with refinement. I hate to say it, but I doubt that refinement will ever come. I think what’s there now will be there for the foreseeable. It’s good enough, but it could be have been really good. I think that, sadly, is the story of Zwift.
I tried to use the D category bot as a warm up. No dice. It’s going too slow for me to find enough value in the time that it takes to get in ride, do some pedalling, then quit, reload the whole game, and pick my next thing to do.
The C category bot is going a bit too fast for a warm up. Shame. There’s no middle ground.
Oh, licking envelopes can be fun! All you have to do is make a game of it.
What I’m personally interested in is trying out the other two bots. Maybe I could try to keep up with the B category bot to get up to the 2x multiplier. Maybe I could try keeping up with A category bot for as long as possible. Make my own game of it. I see some interesting challenges there. Nothing structured, just me making my own game within the game.
Have you tried the pace bots? If so, what do you think? Am I being too harsh? Let me know in the comments.
Totally agreed on the UX- I totally lose the bot multiple times I tried it, and had no idea if I was ahead or behind. I went up to “B” and there were less people, and it was much easier. But man, soon as you are dropped, boom, you are out- no way to rejoin etc, which is a bit of a shame- would be nice to have a boost/couple of boosts, depending on how long you had remained in it? Definitely my plan to see if I can improve how long I can stick with a group.
Yeah, that idea of a collectable boost is a really good one. Maybe you could build them up as you pass through the ‘stages’ or whatever to the next multiplier. I hate to say it though, I very much doubt they will ever implement those kind of ideas. Which is a massive shame as it’s probably one of the best things they have ever added in the time I’ve been a subscriber.
One was CoCo cadence would occassionally say “v”. That’s it. Seemed to me like someone at Zwift made a mistake when doing a copy / paste. Which highlights issues with their QA process (or lack thereof), and isn’t the first time I’ve seen typos in official Zwift stuff.
Irony – there is one ‘s’ in occasionally
Ha.
That said I don’t charge you £12.99 a month to read my typos 😉
Good spot though 😀 People in glass houses and all that.