Once a week I set up a race against 20 ‘Expert’ real bots on differing courses on RGT. I don’t know how much AI goes into these bots but it provides a realistic race experience with bots forming race subgroups, mounting attacks and even blocking me in. Today however was my first real bot race with steering, and things seem to have changed. I don’t know whether there is a bug that needs patching, or if the bots have not yet received their Kickr Steers but the bots on my 3 lap race on Borrego did not steer at all. They just stayed put in the lane position they started in. My steering with a Kickr Steer device worked well but all the apparent tactics of the bots were absent, although they did still vary their pace. I abandoned the race after two laps as it was essentially a pace bot ride, and not a race. Perhaps someone from RGT can comment on whether this is a bug or is intentional, but as things stand racing against the bots is no longer the exciting experience it once was. Can auto steering be restored to the bots?
On a more general note about steering I agree with some of the comments on other threads that steering/auto steering should be optional and not forced on the user.
Update: I reached out to Wahoo about the apparent removal of steering abilities from the bots on RGT and this is the reply from Wahoo Support:-
“The bots no longer auto steer since the introduction of the steering feature. I’m very sorry for your experience with the new bot behavour in races.”
Unfortunately, it appears that the bots remain in their “lanes” now and perhaps only deviate from this to avoid collisions!
The REAL bots have become ZOMBIE bots.
I hope they change/fix that otherwise it’s a bit disappointing - especially since the point of the bots is to emulate real riders.
Wow!
What I’d like to see is a less active form of the old auto-steer, not only for bots, but also for riders who want to opt-out of the new steering feature. Perhaps the concern is that actively steering bots will be too disruptive, or too hard to follow. But bots which practiced less active steering, more like what a lazy human might do, would make for better racing.
I filed a support request for rudimentary auto-steering to be applied to race bots and made an option for humans who don’t want to steer. But it would be slow, for example making steering decisions every 5 seconds, and only for compelling motive, as opposed to actively swerving left and right as they did previously.
Unfortunately much of my riding on RGT is based on private events or races I set up with just me and some bots. I appreciate that this may not be everyones cup of tea but it suits me. As things stand, the Zombie bots without auto steering no longer provide a good enough experience. There are also not enough real event rides yet on RGT to compensate for this. I have reluctantly had to renew my Zwift sub. I’m not very happy about this.