Athletics and character speed comparison

[En_Dotter]

Hello everyone. I have conduced an experiment with a clan mate to see how much athletics affects speed if you are an archer. We have concluded that low athletics archer and high athletics archer with the same gear have really small speed difference. Our experiment might not be statistically accurate because we did 10 measurements per experiment.
This is how we did it.

SETUP

Experiment 1:

Same weight armor parts: 9.4kg (9.7kg of effective armor weight)
Weapons: none (0kg)
30 meters run. 10m were used to gain maximum speed and time measurement takes place at the last 20m.
Archer1 agility/athletics: 27/0
Archer2 agility/athletics: 24/8


Experiment 2:

Same weight armor parts: 9.4kg (9.7kg of effective armor weight)
Weapon: sheeted Masterwork Horn Bow (2.7kg) and 3 sets of Masterwork Bodkin arrows (3*10kg). Total mass of 32.7
30 meters run. 10m were used to gain maximum speed and time measurement takes place at the last 20m.
Archer1 agility/athletics: 27/0
Archer2 agility/athletics: 24/8

RESULTS

Experiment 1

Archer1 average speed: 3.78m/s
Archer2 average speed: 4.36m/s

Experiment 2

Archer1 average speed: 3.46m/s
Archer2 average speed: 3.87m/s

CONCLUSION

Archer (could be approximated to any other class) with no weapon has an advantage of having athletics skill. Difference between athletics 0 and athletics 8 with agility difference of 27 to 24 is notable. Archer with 24 agility and 8 athletics is ~13.3% faster than the other one. Or in plain numbers if they were running from the same starting position the archer with 24/8 (agi/ath) build would gain 1m advantage for every 7.52m they ran.
On the other hand if they both have additional 32.7kg on their backs you can see that the difference in speed decreases. The average speed difference has dropped from ~13% to 11%. That means that the 24/8 archer must run 9.44 meters in order to gain 1m advantage of distance over 27/0 archer. That means he needs to run additional 1.92 meters to do the same effect. Is bonus 1 meters after running 9.5 meters a big advantage?

The question is, is it now even worth investing in athletics? The speed difference between those 2 builds doesnt seem quite obvious...



EDIT:
I added some more info at the end.
I forgot to thank Big_Shot for helping me do this experiment.
And also i have to thank BlindGuy for reminding me that i need to go back to school and learn maths again. I posted false results when i opened the thread and thanks to him i corrected them.

[BlindGuy]

Well either u have posted results back to front or you got lost somewhere in school and forgot how to math. Also take the sheet off the bow it creates wind drag.

[Tibe]

Frankly adding ath over 3 as an archer in my alt, seemed rather pointless to me. But thats due to the fact that I went melee/archer hybrid and  I dont run from fights, if they are 1 vs me or even 2 vs me.

[En_Dotter]

Well either u have posted results back to front or you got lost somewhere in school and forgot how to math. Also take the sheet off the bow it creates wind drag.

Tnx for this post. I had correct data but i dont know how i failed to calculate the correct stuff after i collected the data... I was talking on TS, talking with ppl in my room and doing calculations... I have corrected the results and i still didnt find out how i made such a retarded result last time...

Tnx again!

EDIT: I will do testing with bow in the hand and with other armor types and different weapon combinations.

[Xscizorx]

This is pretty interesting. Thank you for taking your time and doing this, haven't seen it anywhere else.

[Macropus]

Athletics is worth it, but it's not about maximum running speed.
It's more about you being able to dodge that horseman or not, or jump over that fence, ect
PS: but for archers though, with their 20kg arrows, it might really be not that useful...

[Teeth]

What this experiment completely misses is the effect of athlethics on acceleration, the most important aspect of movement speed, at least for melee. In my experience a full strength guy is not all that much slower top speed compared to a high agi build. But when you start taking turns, side stepping and moving forward and then backwards, then you will notice a huge difference caused by athlethics. As a full strength in plate you can't even stop immediately, your character will slide onwards a bit after you stopped pressing forward. Acceleration is so much more important than top speed.

Also, I can not quite agree that a 10% speed difference is insignificant. It means that you get a meter distance every 10 m from the other guy, which means you easily outrun him. Also that the guy without athlethics has 3 more agility reduces the accuracy of the experiments, as agility affects movement speed as well. To truly estimate the effect of athlethics you need to have characters with the same agility.

In any case, here is a thread with extensive testing on the subject by WaltF4 for those that are interested, he knows his shit. Sadly his testing does not look at acceleration either.
http://forum.meleegaming.com/beginner's-help-and-guides/running-in-crpg/

[En_Dotter]

We did different agi points cus of this assumption: If u dont have athletics you would convert it to attributes, and lets say its agi. This isnt about hybrid builds, but dedicated archer build.
Good point you made about acceleration. We will do experiments about acceleration then. We will do 10m run to check the acceleration.

We will assume the following:
Starting speed=0
Max speed is achieved after 10m run and will be equal to average speed of the previous experiment.
Acceleration=(Max speed)/(time to reach 10m mark)

While this might not be 100% realistic we need to make some way of controlling the conditions. If you have a better idea of setting up the experiment please write down your idea.

[Kafein]

As Teeth said, this may be accurate but top speed isn't critical in this game. At least not as much as acceleration and inertia reduction.

[Ronin]

As Teeth said, this may be accurate but top speed isn't critical in this game. At least not as much as acceleration and inertia reduction.

For a melee character, acceleration is more important than running speed; because you'll need to change your movements within seconds in close quarters. Archer on the other hand needs the running speed more than acceleration as a pure archer will try to avoid melee as much as possible. Since archers can't kite anymore with those 10 kg arrow quivers, it is more about positioning (climbing up a hill, roof etc.).

[Kafein]

For a melee character, acceleration is more important than running speed; because you'll need to change your movements within seconds in close quarters. Archer on the other hand needs the running speed more than acceleration as a pure archer will try to avoid melee as much as possible. Since archers can't kite anymore with those 10 kg arrow quivers, it is more about positioning (climbing up a hill, roof etc.).

Acceleration is important for archers too. Dodging cav, making turns while being chased... And besides if you want to stand your ground the melee argument is relevant

[Adamar]

Movement speed and running speed are 2 diferente things. Archers lack both right now.

[Haboe]

Post results, i assume you made 10+ runs on each setting and compared them?

[Mala]

Yes, athletics has a positive effect on your speed, but the result is not that huge.

Here a quick comparison ath 7 vs ath 0 and what would happen, if i would save the points in athletics and shift them into agility.

The distance was about 16 m and the 7 points in athletics have saved me one second.

And another try, this time 2* 2.4 m. With ath 7 i was a 1/4 second faster.

[NuberT]

Wasn't athletics only affecting acceleration? So endspeed on flat terrain was the same with 0 or 10 athletics.