Athletics

[Dravic]

Just keep in mind that athletics doesn't make you run faster, only accelerate to top speed faster. A guy in plate with 2 athletics can run as fast as a naked guy with 10 athletics in a straight line, so keep that in mind if you make a character like that.
Lot of weird stuff happened in the patch that was mostly eliminated by the level cap anyways, but ah well. I was thinking of making a thread to reinstate athletics increase your top speed... You have to understand that it was done to prevent archers who kited and could still kill people in a few shots. That isn't possible as of the damage & speed nerf to archery anymore... But oh well.
You may be more inclined to have more strength than that, is all I am saying. *fun fact: 13 athletics and you are always at your top speed! You can dance in combat if you are OK with having 3 strength lol.

Is all this text true?

Well, I know that red part isnt true, im sure, because ive compared my run when i had 0 athl 13 pt and black armor to a guy with 0 athl too, but in heraldic.

however, im not sure about rest. And if it was "implemented" (tho i think word "nerfed" fits a bit better), it was implemented in cRPG only or in Warband generally by devs?

[Khalim]

Hmm.

I think that athletic does not influence the maximum run speed a lot(but it does). Moreover it reduces weightpenalties.

[Cyclopsided]

The extreme case of 0 ath black armor can almost never achieve his own top speed due to the increasing penalty to acceleration of both weight and lack of athletics.

I invite you to test it however you like, I know for a fact that with 2 athletics I ran just as fast as The_Mayor_BRD's 13 athletics in a straight line, it is only the acceleration to top speed that increases. (example: we both start at same time, he gets 15 feet ahead, and at that time I reach my max speed and will maintain a 15 feet gap for the entire duration. as he achieved max speed before I did.)
Don't get it wrong, it is still useful in combat because you can dance out of people's reach on their swings and be able to step in to hit.

[WaltF4]

The extreme case of 0 ath black armor can almost never achieve his own top speed due to the increasing penalty to acceleration of both weight and lack of athletics.

Do you have approximate times or distances that characters must run to reach their top speeds?

[Cyclopsided]

Do you have approximate times or distances that characters must run to reach their top speeds?

No, but if you would like to do some official testing to find out, I'd love to help as empirical evidence is indisputable.
I'm sure anyone in BRD will help you record times with various weights/athletics values as to when they achieve full run speed and the distance it requires.

[Teeth]

If athl doenst increase your top speed than it sure decreases the weight penalty cause fact is that you can run faster with a high athl character on top speed than lower athl characters with comparable gear. I use it as a tactic to distract groups of enemy infantrymen by letting them chase me, giving the rest of my team a numerical advantage.

[Matey]

i remain unconvinced. when i dicked around with a 11 athletics build i could kite people well enough to reload my xbow and then shoot them, and then repeat. also, i have never felt like i was moving very fast with a lower athletics character regardless of how long i ran in a straight line, whereas with 8+ athletics you notice that you move fast. anyways ill test it with you some time if you want... but im sure athletics ups your max speed.

[GuiKa]

  If you'r talking about a flat ground maybe athletics wont change your max speed but there's always some hills/rocks/rivers/miniholes/minihills/etc... which will decrease your speed and then you'll have to accelerate again to reach your max speed again. So with 2 athletics in most of map you will never reach your max speed (even more if you'r dancing to dodge arrows), that mean you are often in an accelerate state then you will be faster with more athletics =x.
  By the way maybe with 13 athletics you can be faster on flat ground doing a bunny jumping =p.

[Dravic]

I guess that 15 athletics would be 100% faster by bunny jumping, but not sure about 13 athletics ;x

[Z_E_N]

Sorry Marathon, you are completely incorrect.

I already did a study on Athletics on the original Talesworld forum back in the day.

The results are here:

http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,136032.msg3275181.html#msg3275181

A nice tidbit that I wrote afterwards is...

"Also of interesting note, the distance was a fairly short one.  When accelerating, the character is much slower than their top speed.  You tin cans running around probably don't notice it as much, but us light armor people are much slower on the start than when we really hit our max speed.    Therefore, you can also conclude that for longer distances, the difference between Athletics 9 and Athletics 8 will also be greater. 
"



As someone that has studied athletics thoroughly, I can assure you that when I'm running full speed in light armor chasing an archer who has less athletics but also in light armor, I will eventually catch up to the archer.

The biggest thing that irks high Athletics is Rain.

Rain seems to put a cap on how fast you can run. 

Oh, and to give you the percentile difference, at full speed each athletics point = 5% faster move speed while naked.  This was tested with the same AGI (because it was believed back then that AGI also effected move speed, which it still might, so I did the study with the same AGI). 

However, the effect is still lessened greatly by armor;  A Tin Can with 7 Athletics is not going to move any faster than a Tin Can with 2 Athletics

[Keshian]

     When people turn, or shift from a straight line in any way they partially decelerate, same thing if they go at all uphill.  You are catching up to them because you maintain top speed longer, but I have seen this tested before and post-patch running in a straight line both people running hit the same top max speed it just takes me longer in full plate with 1 athletics then the amyor in 13 athletics, but if we don't change directions we at some point reach the same top speed.  Pre-patch, yes athletics added 5% to top speed, which I loved and though was awesome with 14 athletics. 
    I guess chadz didn't like archers running away turning and shooting his tin can programmers/admins who couldn't keep up with their 100% pure strength builds.  With level cap, slow draw speed, and 3 archer nerfs this really isn't a problem anymore.  However, with the combination of the soft wpf cap and the loss of top speed benefit from athletics it really makes no sense anymore not to build a character with more strength than agility.  This is an imbalance that should be fixed.  At the very least weight of armor should damage your top speed. 

[Z_E_N]

Kesh, you have no proof that this was ever changed.  Unless a dev somewhere said "Athletics was nerfed" then I seriously doubt they put extra effort into programming a ninja nerf.

On my study, I showed the difference in speed between 8 and 9 athletics while naked running on flat ground.

When naked, as in, 0 weight,  there is no acceleration time, you hit top speed instantly.  Even with extremely light armor such as a robe and a light weapon, you hit top speed nearly instantly.

The difference between the athletics while naked is purely based on top speed.

The reason why athletics doesn't "feel" as fast as it used to is because everyone is wearing medium armor where it doesn't make that much of a difference.  There were more peasants and tin cans back then so you could feel the difference in speed.  (Peasants with low athletics skill and tin cans who are slow anyway).

If you truly think you can keep up with Mayor when it is not raining (read above, raining decreases move speed), then go ahead and try.

I know I've raced Mayor in clear weather with my 9 athletics vs. his 13 athletics both wearing very light gear and not only did I obviously lose but he consistently pulled further away.  (He didn't realize I was racing him most likely because I was far behind him trying to keep up).

There are many factors people don't realize that slow a character down that I've just started to dabble in.

For instance, holding a Steel Pick makes you move substantially slower (yes top speed) than holding a Side sword, even though the weight difference is only 1.  Why is this? I don't know.  Its the same thing with a pike, you can have a pike and a similar weight polearm, switch to the pike, and you are moving slower.  As soon as you switch to the other one, you move faster.  Even if the weights are the same.

To clarify:

People who wear medium or greater armor don't notice the differences because they are too small.  But those of us that have always played Light armor or less high Athletics characters can see the minute differences between changing gear, or shields, or weapons. 

I've even noticed a difference carrying around a 1h sword (Side sword) + Buckler, with a total weight of 3.8  vs. an Iron Staff with a total weight of 2.0;   Guess which was slower?  The iron staff.

[Z_E_N]

Here's an easy test.

Make a character, level 1 with zero athletics race against a 7 athletics character both while naked on the same flat terrain.  Watch the 7 ath character consistently pull away even at long distance.

Edit:  I'll do the tests when I get off work later if no one else does.  I have two characters perfect for the situation and the current duel map has a center path that makes for easy marking and consistency.  Its just a shame that I had to debunk the 7.5 rumor back in the day and now I have to debunk a new one.

[Gorath]

Kesh, you have no proof that this was ever changed.  Unless a dev somewhere said "Athletics was nerfed" then I seriously doubt they put extra effort into programming a ninja nerf.

On my study, I showed the difference in speed between 8 and 9 athletics while naked running on flat ground.

When naked, as in, 0 weight,  there is no acceleration time, you hit top speed instantly.  Even with extremely light armor such as a robe and a light weapon, you hit top speed nearly instantly.

The difference between the athletics while naked is purely based on top speed.

The reason why athletics doesn't "feel" as fast as it used to is because everyone is wearing medium armor where it doesn't make that much of a difference.  There were more peasants and tin cans back then so you could feel the difference in speed.  (Peasants with low athletics skill and tin cans who are slow anyway).

If you truly think you can keep up with Mayor when it is not raining (read above, raining decreases move speed), then go ahead and try.

I know I've raced Mayor in clear weather with my 9 athletics vs. his 13 athletics both wearing very light gear and not only did I obviously lose but he consistently pulled further away.  (He didn't realize I was racing him most likely because I was far behind him trying to keep up).

There are many factors people don't realize that slow a character down that I've just started to dabble in.

For instance, holding a Steel Pick makes you move substantially slower (yes top speed) than holding a Side sword, even though the weight difference is only 1.  Why is this? I don't know.  Its the same thing with a pike, you can have a pike and a similar weight polearm, switch to the pike, and you are moving slower.  As soon as you switch to the other one, you move faster.  Even if the weights are the same.

To clarify:

People who wear medium or greater armor don't notice the differences because they are too small.  But those of us that have always played Light armor or less high Athletics characters can see the minute differences between changing gear, or shields, or weapons. 

I've even noticed a difference carrying around a 1h sword (Side sword) + Buckler, with a total weight of 3.8  vs. an Iron Staff with a total weight of 2.0;   Guess which was slower?  The iron staff.

THANK YOU!

This actually reinforces what I've started a thread about and been mentioning to people in-game for a while now since the patch as it pertains to athletics and strength builders.  I've been swearing up and down that my 8! athletics does not seem to give me much of a tangible benefit while wearing medium armor vs those strength build players (Goretooth, Cyranule, etc) who wear heavier armor than I do.  I knew I wasn't going crazy.

If you don't mind I'm going to add your comments here to the thread I made about it as well.  I made the claim that I don't see much value in raising athletics past 4 (MAYBE 5) if you're going to wear lameller/tunic over mail or higher armor.

I'm also surprised about your findings when it comes to the weapons, even if they have lower weight than another weapon.

[Keshian]

The proof s in the pudding, try it out for yourself, top speed is same across the board, only thing that changes is acceleration rate.