bg_alt is a really bright guy, who spends a lot of time statistically analyzing ZED. His latest findings don't require a stats genius to have noticed over the past month, but he's basically confirmed what I have been saying: Racing has been dramatically harder since they realigned the classes last month (and brought negative points back to free racing).

https://twitter.com/bg_alt/status/1479685221008109568
https://twitter.com/bg_alt/status/1479689355123847169


All five classes are very competitive right now. Even at Class 5 $2.50 races -- the lowest tier paid race type -- you need to have a fairly good horse to compete.

I had horses who were beating the $2.50s by a fairly good margin (KROQ Ken and Ice Cold AC) who can't compete anymore at any paid race on the system. Thus, I don't race them anymore.

Flying Stupidity used to be able to win at Class 2 $10 races. I had to tank him down to Class 4 just so he could be +EV at $5 races.

Projekt SEP needed to be downgraded to from Class 4 to Class 5 in order to win $5 races again (and he still doesn't usually flame).

Catfish also needed to go down from 5 to 4, in order to win $5 races.

Ptarmigan also needs to go down to class 5, but I can't get him down because he's too good at all lengths to reliably lose at free races, so he's stuck at upper class 4. So right now he's useless. Before, he was my most profitable racer. Sad!

I have two other horses (Esteem and Lowballin KYH Princess) who would be winning at Class 4, but can't get back there because they are mid-distance horses, and again don't reliably lose free races.

My new horse One to Grow On, who can beat Class 5 $2.50 races at 2000m (and nothing else), is about the minimum you need these days: https://www.hawku.com/horse/177140


Sadly, all of this was predictable. ZED unfortunately makes reactionary changes to their class system, without bothering to think about how players will adjust. They need to think one step ahead, but they don't. I've still been able to grind out a small continuous profit on ZED racing, but all of the downclassing is really cooking the fun out of it.

More importantly, this is crushing any chance new users have to get going with racing, as not a single paid race is easy nowadays. Every single race has several good horses in it.