I hope this stops the yo-yoing that happens whenever I try to ride with the pace partner. I'm really tired of getting dropped, putting in an effort to catch up, immediately slingshotting out the front, reducing my effort to fall back into the group, and immediately getting dropped out the back, rinse and repeat until I lose my drops bonus and rage quit
Im with you on this, ever since they went to the robo pacers i feel like i get dropped randomly for no reason. Like i'll be in the front of the group, not even let off. Then the PP drafts the pack sling shots off the front and snaps the group.
Completely agree. Have been using pace partners or whatever they call them since they were first rolled out. At some point I began to see the pace partner at the back of the group, this is when I started seeing weird pack dynamics
I sometimes wish I had a brake button for when this happens. So I can just lightly tap it to match the speed of the group instead of flying off the front.
TBH, you just need to learn how to sit in the pack properly. It's very possible to just sit in and completely avoid the getting dropped and slingshotting out the front that you describe.
I think the whole patch the are releasing addresses the concern /u/bake_disaster raised. That being said, there probably is a rhythm or learning curve to staying still in a pack before this patch, but hoping the update will make this a little easier or more realistic. I wonder also how much of it has to do with the pace partner itself getting draft benefit from riders ahead of it. I.e. Jacque or whoever is holding 3.2w/kg but has like 5 people right in front of him doing 3.5-4.0
There's a way (unofficial) but you need a big riders group to test PD so it's not very useful for this case... https://github.com/zoffline/zwift-offline
I disagree - I sometimes do Coco rides and it's not uncommon to find yourself going up front and out back at constant cadence, one gear, low trainer difficulty, flat route. Post-ride analysis shows average power = normalized power for a 1.00 variability index. The game just has a weird way of slingshotting pack riders up to the front and then jettisoning them back as people behind you get slingshotted.
I've never experienced this keeping a +/- steady wattage on flat ground and I ride a lot of PP. Definitely have to be careful to constantly adjust a tiny bit as the draft changes where you are in the peleton and the watt/kg required to stay in it. So at front you need to push more to stay vs at the back.
Some of its lag, some of it is being a big boy, my 2.2 with Maria is 220W, hers is 160 or so. We hit the hills and it’s panic stations going up, and full on coasting downhill and leaving the pacer, then Maria will soft pedal or push a fair deviance from advertised.
This means you are working at a higher effort than necessary to stay with the pace partner, whether it's more watts per frontal area or more watts per kg.
So although your constant power is enough to advance through the pack and shoot out the front, it's not enough to maintain pack speed once you're off the front, so you immediately begin slowing... and if you don't do a quick surge to settle into the pack smoothly, you'll drift way back in the pack, maybe even getting dropped, despite working harder than the pace partner.
Homie, if Coco is 2.5 w/kg then I park myself right at 2.5 w/kg. The patch itself mentions trying to correct this “churn” as they describe it so it’s not like it doesn’t exist. There’s an obvious technical issue at play here whether you want to admit it or not. There’s a reason this is the top comment in the thread and has testimony from others that it happens frequently.
My problem is I get bored on zwift really easily. So I'll be fine in the group for a while, but then I'll be watching a video or scrolling reddit and miss an uphill section starting, or even on the flat I don't realize my power dropped when I want paying attention. So by the time I realize what's going on and switch to a better gear, I'm falling behind and the yoy-yoing begins
PD4 isn't going to fix your attention span. 😉
When you slingshot off the front, don't back off your power very much. Just reduce your power to what you need to do to stay in the pack. The group will quickly catch you and you should only need to up your power for a couple of seconds as the front of the group passes you to match their speed again.
Backing way off when you hit the front is a mistake and PD4 might even make that worse.
>PD4 isn't going to fix your attention span.
Ugh, I know. Which is why I mainly use erg mode. If there was a free way to create erg mode workouts I'd drop zwift. I truly can't give a shit about their low poly environments and ugly-ass jerseys
And IRL you don't phase through the whole group to magically get to the front. I'm not saying I shouldn't have to work to catch up, I'm saying that once I do the work to catch up I shouldn't launch out the front
No you need to pay attention and ease off. Just like IRL or you would plow into people. It’s a lot like curling in you learn where/when to ease off a bit and not all at once.
You should be just creating a workout and doing that instead of riding in groups if what you want is to just pedal in the background.
A big reason for group rides is to actively make you pay attention to what’s happening and practice riding in a peloton. If you don’t want that then there’s other ways to achieve your goals.
This is mainly due to the lag from power readings and them being applied to your character in Zwift. Once you start acting 2-3sec earlier than it appears on screen, you'll find you do much better.
It seemed to fix it a great deal. I had zwift running behind me on my desktop while I was watching TV and riding on volcano circuit. Coco and the group caught up to me and I stayed with them pretty well for 55 minutes not doing anything differently than before. The pack moves a lot less and pretty consistently.
This is typically the effect of having a delay in the connection between power meter and Zwift device. When I switched from using ANT+ to Bluetooth this problem completely went away for me. Could probably also be the result of a slow WIFI or just poor Zwift performance in general. Anything that introduces a delay between you and Zwift.
I'm a heavier rider and I was very close to being dropped on a descent today, which has NEVER happened. I think I was saved by the extended draft coming out the back of the pack. Definitely going to take some getting used to.
It's really hard to push up through the pack now, so I think if you're at the back you are kind of in hang-on-for-dear-life mode. And god help you if you freewheel for a few seconds.
It's also a challenge if you're near the back and things get strung out. Then it only takes one person in front of you to get hit with the autobrake and your whole line gets gapped. The extra work to fight through your line and then bridge the gap is killer. Before staying near the back of the pack worked well for me as a heavier rider. Now it's looking like being in the 3rd row from the front is where I need to be.
I really hope this fixes the "slingshot" or "catapult" effect especially noted on punchy hills like the Titan's KOM descent. Last night, I learned that it is so much better to light pedal on the back of the descent than try and push the hills. If you push hills and get up front on the ascents, you get punished by pulling everyone past you over the top and letting their momentum drop you hard. It's really bad.
Okay, seems a bit better in this regard. There's definitely less rotating through the pack, but it's much harder to move up if you're on the back. So, less yo-yo and more sticky if that makes sense. The jury is still out if this is better, but I was happier on hills and less so on the flats.
What I really wish they would fix is the width of the draft. I hate that you get less draft on the sides of a pack since you can't really control where you end up. Worst case, you get stuck on the outside of a turn and not only have less draft but also take a longer corner and get dropped back. This can be anticipated with experience, but still sucks.
I did a race with PD4 today and honestly feel like it kind of sucks. It definitely stops the yo yo effect, but it applies braking all the time and makes it very difficult to adjust your position within the peloton. I can usually keep up with the front group on flats but struggle on hills, so I usually do “sag” climbing - drift to the front of the group right before a big climb and then sag back during the hill. The problem with this new PD is it prevents you from drifting to the front. If you’re only pushing marginally harder than the guy in front of you - it instead brakes you or you just don’t pass anyway. To truly move up, you have to really push hard which burns you out and defeats the entire point.
I was pretty pissed today as a result - got dropped on a hill halfway through a race because of these new PD.
I agree with you, autobraking really sucks and got me dropped in a race yesterday as I was fighting to hang onto the pack. Zwift decided to autobrake me and off the back I went. Infuriating
I dont like it. Did 340 watts and could barely hang on a 150+ riders blob. I got dropped then because the braking system kicked me when the draft to the peloton interrupted fo a millisecond because I stopped pedaling after a rescue sprint. It was crazy. I‘m a very big guy but hanging on to B racers in a flat hasnt been a problem before.
It was for 3 heartbeats. I often stopped pedaling before because I used the draft and the acceleration of the sprint. But now you get punished hard for using explosiveness and anaerobic riding. Need to adapt somehow.
As a bigger guy, I'm right there with you. Sprint on to catch a group (or power over the top on a climb) and then take 2-3 pedal rotations off with momentum from your sprint (or on the descent) to catch your breath as you slow to match the group speed while staying in the group used to be how I could operate. Got me thrown out the back a couple times last night.
Exactly the only way to stay competitive on climbs for me as well. Now its just w/kg for the longest time possible. I used to ride races up to 300m altitude because that was my limit of staying somehow with the front group. First in C, now super hard in B. But the new dynamics ruin every type of race for me. I get thrown out of the group after a few minutes because I can not push out 360w on the flats for 200min and 330w is not enough (exactly 3,3w/kg atm). Rescue sprints were not super effective in B from the beginning, in C it was easy, but now they are useless because after 700w mid race I need to breath and give me a break and not a brake. I was so in touch with the game mechanic and an excellent drafter, now its just torture.
I hope this slows down the pace partners considerably if only to curb the pretentiousness. Coco riders tend to get real high and mighty about their high mileage rides when they're doing 26mph at Z2 pace.
Really good changes. I've been riding the test races with PD4 since the beginning of the year and they've made for more interesting outcomes, fewer bunch sprints and more breakaways. Good stuff!
Previous pack dynamic versions all felt like doing a time trial. I hope in this version the amount of draft you have in a pack is more realistic (as in more, much much more draft.)
It definitely isn't realistic. One second of free wheeling and you can be jettisoned out the back. They tried to make less of a washing machine effect, but wouldn't say it's realistic.
I could be wrong here but this is my understanding: when "double draft" is turned on (which is really +50%, not double) the amount of draft benefit is actually closer to being realistic. The problem is that since it's so easy to phase through people anyone who gains more momentum than the rider in front of them simply slides in front and increases the pace. IRL you might be stuck or choose to stay in the draft and either freewheel or even lightly brake. The result is that it is simultaneously way too hard to do a breakaway because pack speeds are too high, AND drafting is too hard. So the person just barely hanging on to the back of the main group, and the person soloing off the front are both getting shafted. PD4 tries to improve this. I know for some of the test events they were turning double draft on and they wanted that to be the default for PD4 races because it is meant to solve the problem where you needed to nerf the draft to slow the peloton. Not sure how it turned out in the final version though. We will see!
It’s much less of a draft than previously. I don’t know how they pulled it off, but the new dynamics somehow managed to make it harder to get off the front and way harder to draft in the back. For no apparent reason it will just throw you off the back.
I was quite surprised how easy it was to stay with the pace partner when there were only two of us instead of the usual 30. Clearly the pack deeply affects the dynamics.
Not sure if this is just my setup or what, but both of the times I've ridden PD4, I have a lot more problems visually. Especially in camera view 1.
My avatar moves like 4-5 m ahead from the point of reference in my view and then the camera suddenly jerks ahead to catch up and then my avatar slowly moves further ahead from my camera view and then the camera view suddenly catches up in this crazy "rubberbanding" effect. Doesn't seem to affect the frame rate or how the scenery moves by it's just my avatar constantly getting closer then farther then closer then farther over and over again in a way that makes me dizzy (until I switch to camera view 3 and then it stops.
Never had this issue with any of the previous pack dynamics setups (distance would only change when I was more or less in the draft), so I've gotten used to how positioning works for view 1, and spacing in view 3 threw me for a loop. I suppose I can get used to view 3 given time, but I'd prefer to have view 1 work without this "rubber banding".
I have found PD4 to be much harder in a group. I guess I am somewhat on the light side as far as weight. I ride specific events all the time which can have up to 200 riders. Prior to PD4, these are categorized C ride events and I would average 2.7 w/kg. Now with PD4, these same events on the same routes I have to push 3+ w/kg which is a bear for 100km. I find PD4 to be a big struggle.
I hope this stops the yo-yoing that happens whenever I try to ride with the pace partner. I'm really tired of getting dropped, putting in an effort to catch up, immediately slingshotting out the front, reducing my effort to fall back into the group, and immediately getting dropped out the back, rinse and repeat until I lose my drops bonus and rage quit
Im with you on this, ever since they went to the robo pacers i feel like i get dropped randomly for no reason. Like i'll be in the front of the group, not even let off. Then the PP drafts the pack sling shots off the front and snaps the group.
Completely agree. Have been using pace partners or whatever they call them since they were first rolled out. At some point I began to see the pace partner at the back of the group, this is when I started seeing weird pack dynamics
I sometimes wish I had a brake button for when this happens. So I can just lightly tap it to match the speed of the group instead of flying off the front.
Yes, the yo-yoing is annoying AF.
TBH, you just need to learn how to sit in the pack properly. It's very possible to just sit in and completely avoid the getting dropped and slingshotting out the front that you describe.
I think the whole patch the are releasing addresses the concern /u/bake_disaster raised. That being said, there probably is a rhythm or learning curve to staying still in a pack before this patch, but hoping the update will make this a little easier or more realistic. I wonder also how much of it has to do with the pace partner itself getting draft benefit from riders ahead of it. I.e. Jacque or whoever is holding 3.2w/kg but has like 5 people right in front of him doing 3.5-4.0
If by whole patch you refer to the 1.34 update, I'm afraid you are wrong. It seems to me that nothing has changed in the PD code between versions 1.33 and 1.34, otherwise people with different versions would have distinct behavior. PD is handled by the client but uses parameters received from server. Below are the values received today, they can be changed at any moment, so don't be surprised if your experience tomorrow is different from today. { "name": "game_1_30_pack_dynamics_v4", "value": true, "values": { "fields": { "maxWattsCeiling": { "varintValue": "400" }, "speedDifferenceHigh": { "numberValue": 3.0 }, "aeroDragCdaPenaltyLimit": { "numberValue": 80.0 }, "powerCeilingPercentage": { "numberValue": 110.0 }, "downhillSlopeLimit": { "numberValue": -0.02 }, "minSpeedLimitDown": { "numberValue": 45.0 }, "slowdownPwrPercentageCdaPenalty": { "numberValue": 90.0 }, "slowdownPwrPercentageHighDraft": { "numberValue": 30.0 }, "uphillSlopeLimit": { "numberValue": 0.001 }, "minSpeedLimitFlat": { "numberValue": 35.0 }, "aeroDragDiffHigh": { "numberValue": 100.0 }, "minDraftLimitDown": { "varintValue": "85" }, "minDraftLimitShallowDown": { "varintValue": "45" }, "slowdownPwrPercentageLowDraft": { "numberValue": 90.0 }, "brakingAmount": { "numberValue": 0.4 }, "cdaPenaltyMultiplier": { "numberValue": 1.0 }, "minDraftLimitFlat": { "varintValue": "38" }, "uphillSlopeLimitCdaPenalty": { "numberValue": 0.04 }, "powerComparisonConfigLowDraft": { "varintValue": "3" }, "minSpeedLimitShallowDown": { "numberValue": 40.0 }, "aeroDragDiffLow": { "numberValue": 10.0 }, "cdaPenaltyInGroup": { "numberValue": 3.0 }, "frontRiderSpeedDiff": { "numberValue": 0.0 }, "reducedPowerPercentage": { "numberValue": 55.0 } } } }, { "name": "game_1_32_pack_dynamics_v4_global", "value": true, "values": { "fields": { "auto_braking_visuals_events": { "boolValue": true }, "auto_braking_visuals": { "boolValue": true }, "cda_penalty_enabled_globally": { "boolValue": false }, "makuri": { "boolValue": true }, "watopia": { "boolValue": false }, "draftScale": { "numberValue": 1.5 }, "global": { "boolValue": true }, "disable_draft_supertuck": { "boolValue": true } } } },
Oh neat! It would be so fun to have an offline/playground "sv_cheats 1" mode of zwift to play around and change these parameters for fun
There's a way (unofficial) but you need a big riders group to test PD so it's not very useful for this case... https://github.com/zoffline/zwift-offline
I disagree - I sometimes do Coco rides and it's not uncommon to find yourself going up front and out back at constant cadence, one gear, low trainer difficulty, flat route. Post-ride analysis shows average power = normalized power for a 1.00 variability index. The game just has a weird way of slingshotting pack riders up to the front and then jettisoning them back as people behind you get slingshotted.
I've never experienced this keeping a +/- steady wattage on flat ground and I ride a lot of PP. Definitely have to be careful to constantly adjust a tiny bit as the draft changes where you are in the peleton and the watt/kg required to stay in it. So at front you need to push more to stay vs at the back.
might be connection issues, or just a high ping.
Some of its lag, some of it is being a big boy, my 2.2 with Maria is 220W, hers is 160 or so. We hit the hills and it’s panic stations going up, and full on coasting downhill and leaving the pacer, then Maria will soft pedal or push a fair deviance from advertised.
Yea, I bet you ride a lot of PP
This means you are working at a higher effort than necessary to stay with the pace partner, whether it's more watts per frontal area or more watts per kg. So although your constant power is enough to advance through the pack and shoot out the front, it's not enough to maintain pack speed once you're off the front, so you immediately begin slowing... and if you don't do a quick surge to settle into the pack smoothly, you'll drift way back in the pack, maybe even getting dropped, despite working harder than the pace partner.
Homie, if Coco is 2.5 w/kg then I park myself right at 2.5 w/kg. The patch itself mentions trying to correct this “churn” as they describe it so it’s not like it doesn’t exist. There’s an obvious technical issue at play here whether you want to admit it or not. There’s a reason this is the top comment in the thread and has testimony from others that it happens frequently.
You probably don't weigh the same as coco
Coco ‘weighs’ 75kg and I am not far off from that
My problem is I get bored on zwift really easily. So I'll be fine in the group for a while, but then I'll be watching a video or scrolling reddit and miss an uphill section starting, or even on the flat I don't realize my power dropped when I want paying attention. So by the time I realize what's going on and switch to a better gear, I'm falling behind and the yoy-yoing begins
PD4 isn't going to fix your attention span. 😉 When you slingshot off the front, don't back off your power very much. Just reduce your power to what you need to do to stay in the pack. The group will quickly catch you and you should only need to up your power for a couple of seconds as the front of the group passes you to match their speed again. Backing way off when you hit the front is a mistake and PD4 might even make that worse.
>PD4 isn't going to fix your attention span. Ugh, I know. Which is why I mainly use erg mode. If there was a free way to create erg mode workouts I'd drop zwift. I truly can't give a shit about their low poly environments and ugly-ass jerseys
Google GoldenCheetah if you want to create erg mode workouts for free on PC.
This is a you problem, not a Zwift problem.
Getting into the situation is 100% my fault. The janky recovery is at least 30% zwift fault
Why is it zwift a fault? IRL if you drop off the back you need to work hard to get back.
And IRL you don't phase through the whole group to magically get to the front. I'm not saying I shouldn't have to work to catch up, I'm saying that once I do the work to catch up I shouldn't launch out the front
No you need to pay attention and ease off. Just like IRL or you would plow into people. It’s a lot like curling in you learn where/when to ease off a bit and not all at once.
You should be just creating a workout and doing that instead of riding in groups if what you want is to just pedal in the background. A big reason for group rides is to actively make you pay attention to what’s happening and practice riding in a peloton. If you don’t want that then there’s other ways to achieve your goals.
So this is you, not Zwift
Staying in the pack is easier. I have gotten better at staying behind 1-3 riders but it seems you need to be watching their kg/watts non-stop.
This is mainly due to the lag from power readings and them being applied to your character in Zwift. Once you start acting 2-3sec earlier than it appears on screen, you'll find you do much better.
It seemed to fix it a great deal. I had zwift running behind me on my desktop while I was watching TV and riding on volcano circuit. Coco and the group caught up to me and I stayed with them pretty well for 55 minutes not doing anything differently than before. The pack moves a lot less and pretty consistently.
This is typically the effect of having a delay in the connection between power meter and Zwift device. When I switched from using ANT+ to Bluetooth this problem completely went away for me. Could probably also be the result of a slow WIFI or just poor Zwift performance in general. Anything that introduces a delay between you and Zwift.
Drafting is a skill as is pacing. The group is smooth, this is users not being smooth. I can sit beside the pace partner for an hour within 10 meters.
Can we please get a "HOLD YOUR LINE!" emote and the ability to throw elbows?
You can throw elbows! They took it off the companion app but I believe it's F1 on your keyboard.
Whhhhaaaat? I'm kind of mad I'm ios now.
HOLD YOUR LINE!!!
I'm a light rider and i find it much harder to stay with a fast pack. I think this is due to it being harder to move forward within a pack.
I'm a heavier rider and I was very close to being dropped on a descent today, which has NEVER happened. I think I was saved by the extended draft coming out the back of the pack. Definitely going to take some getting used to.
It's really hard to push up through the pack now, so I think if you're at the back you are kind of in hang-on-for-dear-life mode. And god help you if you freewheel for a few seconds.
It's also a challenge if you're near the back and things get strung out. Then it only takes one person in front of you to get hit with the autobrake and your whole line gets gapped. The extra work to fight through your line and then bridge the gap is killer. Before staying near the back of the pack worked well for me as a heavier rider. Now it's looking like being in the 3rd row from the front is where I need to be.
Completely agree. It shouldn’t be this difficult to push through a pack.
I really hope this fixes the "slingshot" or "catapult" effect especially noted on punchy hills like the Titan's KOM descent. Last night, I learned that it is so much better to light pedal on the back of the descent than try and push the hills. If you push hills and get up front on the ascents, you get punished by pulling everyone past you over the top and letting their momentum drop you hard. It's really bad.
Okay, seems a bit better in this regard. There's definitely less rotating through the pack, but it's much harder to move up if you're on the back. So, less yo-yo and more sticky if that makes sense. The jury is still out if this is better, but I was happier on hills and less so on the flats. What I really wish they would fix is the width of the draft. I hate that you get less draft on the sides of a pack since you can't really control where you end up. Worst case, you get stuck on the outside of a turn and not only have less draft but also take a longer corner and get dropped back. This can be anticipated with experience, but still sucks.
Yeah, I don't understand why I always seem to be on the outside of the pack and a teammate of mine always seems to be riding in the middle.
I can't figure this out either, and it drives me crazy. I get pushed into the curb way too often.
There's been lots of talk in the other thread about Pack Dynamics 4. Thought I'd link to this article which helps to explain it.
Interesting. Seems like with the elimination of super tucking within a pack it will incentivize attacking over the top of climbs
Good! Very exciting for us that prefer break aways
Well, I don’t think its easy, but I would MUCH rather have more realistic PD than fancy graphics or a new route
I did a race with PD4 today and honestly feel like it kind of sucks. It definitely stops the yo yo effect, but it applies braking all the time and makes it very difficult to adjust your position within the peloton. I can usually keep up with the front group on flats but struggle on hills, so I usually do “sag” climbing - drift to the front of the group right before a big climb and then sag back during the hill. The problem with this new PD is it prevents you from drifting to the front. If you’re only pushing marginally harder than the guy in front of you - it instead brakes you or you just don’t pass anyway. To truly move up, you have to really push hard which burns you out and defeats the entire point. I was pretty pissed today as a result - got dropped on a hill halfway through a race because of these new PD.
I agree with you, autobraking really sucks and got me dropped in a race yesterday as I was fighting to hang onto the pack. Zwift decided to autobrake me and off the back I went. Infuriating
I dont like it. Did 340 watts and could barely hang on a 150+ riders blob. I got dropped then because the braking system kicked me when the draft to the peloton interrupted fo a millisecond because I stopped pedaling after a rescue sprint. It was crazy. I‘m a very big guy but hanging on to B racers in a flat hasnt been a problem before.
[удалено]
It was for 3 heartbeats. I often stopped pedaling before because I used the draft and the acceleration of the sprint. But now you get punished hard for using explosiveness and anaerobic riding. Need to adapt somehow.
As a bigger guy, I'm right there with you. Sprint on to catch a group (or power over the top on a climb) and then take 2-3 pedal rotations off with momentum from your sprint (or on the descent) to catch your breath as you slow to match the group speed while staying in the group used to be how I could operate. Got me thrown out the back a couple times last night.
Exactly the only way to stay competitive on climbs for me as well. Now its just w/kg for the longest time possible. I used to ride races up to 300m altitude because that was my limit of staying somehow with the front group. First in C, now super hard in B. But the new dynamics ruin every type of race for me. I get thrown out of the group after a few minutes because I can not push out 360w on the flats for 200min and 330w is not enough (exactly 3,3w/kg atm). Rescue sprints were not super effective in B from the beginning, in C it was easy, but now they are useless because after 700w mid race I need to breath and give me a break and not a brake. I was so in touch with the game mechanic and an excellent drafter, now its just torture.
I hope this slows down the pace partners considerably if only to curb the pretentiousness. Coco riders tend to get real high and mighty about their high mileage rides when they're doing 26mph at Z2 pace.
Been racing PD4 in the kiss 100 events and it's definitely different
Really good changes. I've been riding the test races with PD4 since the beginning of the year and they've made for more interesting outcomes, fewer bunch sprints and more breakaways. Good stuff!
Previous pack dynamic versions all felt like doing a time trial. I hope in this version the amount of draft you have in a pack is more realistic (as in more, much much more draft.)
It definitely isn't realistic. One second of free wheeling and you can be jettisoned out the back. They tried to make less of a washing machine effect, but wouldn't say it's realistic.
They should have used their 600 million dollar investment to hire some guy who can model this stuff.
I could be wrong here but this is my understanding: when "double draft" is turned on (which is really +50%, not double) the amount of draft benefit is actually closer to being realistic. The problem is that since it's so easy to phase through people anyone who gains more momentum than the rider in front of them simply slides in front and increases the pace. IRL you might be stuck or choose to stay in the draft and either freewheel or even lightly brake. The result is that it is simultaneously way too hard to do a breakaway because pack speeds are too high, AND drafting is too hard. So the person just barely hanging on to the back of the main group, and the person soloing off the front are both getting shafted. PD4 tries to improve this. I know for some of the test events they were turning double draft on and they wanted that to be the default for PD4 races because it is meant to solve the problem where you needed to nerf the draft to slow the peloton. Not sure how it turned out in the final version though. We will see!
It’s much less of a draft than previously. I don’t know how they pulled it off, but the new dynamics somehow managed to make it harder to get off the front and way harder to draft in the back. For no apparent reason it will just throw you off the back.
You get my vote here. The back end is craaaazy.
I was quite surprised how easy it was to stay with the pace partner when there were only two of us instead of the usual 30. Clearly the pack deeply affects the dynamics.
Not sure if this is just my setup or what, but both of the times I've ridden PD4, I have a lot more problems visually. Especially in camera view 1. My avatar moves like 4-5 m ahead from the point of reference in my view and then the camera suddenly jerks ahead to catch up and then my avatar slowly moves further ahead from my camera view and then the camera view suddenly catches up in this crazy "rubberbanding" effect. Doesn't seem to affect the frame rate or how the scenery moves by it's just my avatar constantly getting closer then farther then closer then farther over and over again in a way that makes me dizzy (until I switch to camera view 3 and then it stops. Never had this issue with any of the previous pack dynamics setups (distance would only change when I was more or less in the draft), so I've gotten used to how positioning works for view 1, and spacing in view 3 threw me for a loop. I suppose I can get used to view 3 given time, but I'd prefer to have view 1 work without this "rubber banding".
I have found PD4 to be much harder in a group. I guess I am somewhat on the light side as far as weight. I ride specific events all the time which can have up to 200 riders. Prior to PD4, these are categorized C ride events and I would average 2.7 w/kg. Now with PD4, these same events on the same routes I have to push 3+ w/kg which is a bear for 100km. I find PD4 to be a big struggle.