Is athletics leveling progression working as intended?

[Goodmongo]

Oh, come now. After finishing the game, I'm Athletics Level 4, and the character screen shows that I need 2,048 XP to go from 4 to 5. Breach, I'm Level 12 and need 14,176 XP to get to 13. I don't feel like determining the exponential curve to level a stat from 0 to 20, so let's just say, on average, you need 10,000 XP per level, so that's a total of 200,000 XP.

The time it would take to "fatigue yourself 4-5 times to get to 20 XP" enough times to accumulate 200,000 XP is ridiculous, so why even mention it?

I didn't say it would be worth it. I said it allowed you to get XP for the skill.

 

[Inertfoxtrot117]

I think I've seen it go up once when I destroyed my car near a quest marker, so I just ran the rest of the way and 20xp popped for me

 

[vinitry]

It's not clear if it's intented to be so slow by running. But as a fact when I swim i get faster progression with athletism. In anyway there is obvisously not the same athltetism progression between run, swim, jum, fist fight, melee fight etc...

 

[Augurianius]

I'll be honest here, in my first playthrough I had athleticism in 20 (went for a split build with main on body) but I had no clue on how the hell I'd gotten it to that point, one thing that helped a lot though, boxing fights.

Maybe a bug but right after I fought with rhino I got a HUGE boost of one or two levels, given it was hard AF since at that point I hadn't gotten gorilla arms because was fooling around with whipping people, also Rhino aside the same thing (actually more levels) happened with razor, so IDK how blunt fighting (spent A LOT OF TIME dildoing people left and right) and boxing affects the stat but it most definitely does.

 

[mrmikekyle]

Athletics does some to go up pretty damn slow but I've been using gorilla fists and dodging loads in fights and it's starting to go up a bit more. Still pretty slow tho. Apparently it's anything that uses stamina so jumping climbing dodging and sliding, but it always seems like a minor amount as a reward, which sucks because some of the perk levels can be great with the increased carry weights

 

[badfunmike]

I run to all locations all the time.
If possible I use melee combat.
If possible I use force to open doors.

At level 17 im now on athletics level 3.

But it feels like a complete buggy function, how slow the progression of athletic is, atm.
Hope they will patch this as well.

 

[Omegus]

I dont think most the skills xp rates where properly balanced as you can hit level 50 while running, sliding, jumping everywhere and only be level 10 in Athletics.
Some other skills suffer the same lack of balancing xp rates with regular xp.

 

[Domratja]

Athletics leveling needs overhaul, as it is currently tied almost exclusively to stamina drain, many many perks that prevent that from happening block progression way too much. You shouldn't need to use hackish macros to level it by punching in the air, a "solution" many are recommending now. My suggestion is that CDPR just upp the add sprinting, jumps and sliding progression a bit, see how it pans out over time, and increase or decrease it in a later patch if needed. If they are afraid of it leveling too fast by people running around, keep it low outside of combat and increase xp gain inside combat, as it makes sense that's where the real training happens.

 

[dream_sequence]

Skill leveling in general is wrong, especially athletics. I reached Level 50 fairly quick by completing all side quests and police scanners before progressing main story further, my athletics is still level 4...
I use charged jump with air dodging all the time to get around the city, climbing, jumping, running does not level the skill.
I was using solely katana in all my fights and my blades skill stuck at 17 for many play hours now and seem to have stopped getting XP for cutting people.
I seriously doubt there was any QA play through done with this game.

 

[KATZPH]

Wait... there is athletics leveling in the game?

 

[Gorance]

Ok let me stop you right here... half of the game is bugged. Even things you dont see are bugged... Hell i have 7000 armor and it doesnt work in melee... dont get me even started on the fights.. that random number in crafting for the weapon that you get... its the same just the numbers bug out.. its a very buggy game that if someone says that its not beta at best its just an idiot. This game wouldnt be finished even in June 2021...

 

[CaidhMor]

I'm in the same sort of boat as many of you. I'm level 50. Every side quest and gig completed, to give you an idea of how much time investment has gone in. Every time I had to go a distance of less than 1.5K, I ran it. My primary weapon was bare fists/gorilla arms. I'm max skill rank in multiple other skills, but focus hardest on getting athletics experience.

With all that dedicated to getting as much athletics as quickly as possible without outright cheesing the system? I just hit level 6 in it during the TotalImmortal quest.

There needs to be a rebalance of the athletics exp system.

 

[Martind_Forlon_]

I think my best was lvl8 in athletic in three playthroughs (all up to lvl50) and I use katana for fight very often. I however like balanced builds with use of quickhacks ... I heard that berserk use have big impact, but I never tested this.

 

[Maranares]

To be fair, i never reached 20 in any of the skills. Yes, Athletics is crazy slow, but you can finish the game and the majority of gigs way before reaching 20 in any skill. Unless you grind, of course.

 

[Netrunner2go]

To be fair, i never reached 20 in any of the skills. Yes, Athletics is crazy slow, but you can finish the game and the majority of gigs way before reaching 20 in any skill. Unless you grind, of course.

people wanna min-max their builds

 

[Maranares]

people wanna min-max their builds

I know i know, i just see little reason for minmaxing in this particular game, but maybe that's just me.

 

[Donstheman]

Oh good, so it's not just me that was annoyed by this? I'm level 2 in athletics at level 20. A skill leveling up based on running out of stamina which you activly try to avoid doing seems like a terrible progression system.

 

[nosrou.555]

The balance between the different skills in terms of xp for levelling is way off i think. E.g. breaching lvls way faster than athletics even if you aren't trying hard to get either.

 

[Fins_FinsT]

So the big question is...is the athletics skill working as intended because I am lvl 18 and I stil am lvl 1 in athletics even though I am pretty much almost always running instead of driving to get aroud NC. I can not believe this skill is not bugged in some way or another, maybe someone found a way solid way to increase athletics that I am not aware of?

I'm in the exact same boat. I just got some leg implants so now I'm just jumping over everything and I can't say I've seen any change. I've also just been running around Watson and just started driving to get back from the badlands.

I've gotten most of my exp points in this skill from trying to jump onto ledges that I just can't quite reach. I'm still only lvl 1 in this skill at lvl 16 though because I would rather play the game.

From experimenting, it seems to have something to do with stamina usage. If I keep running and double jumping, my stamina usually fills up quickly, so it never dips much. But if I get inside a cargo container for example and keep double jumping (hitting the ceiling) I can drain my stamina down low and let it recharge, and when it does I usually get like 20 XP for Athletics.

Same if I "shadow box" by just doing melee attacks while draining my stamina. If I do a bunch of attacks slowly, letting my stamina refill between, I don't seem to get any XP. But if I punch until I'm mostly drained and let it recharge, I seem to get the 20 XP tick.

Same problem here...

I've found that forcing doors open by using your body stat is a reliable way of getting XP for this.
Good luck finding enough of those doors to level it up at anything but a snail's pace.

I agree it's incredibly slow, but if this helps please note that if you go swimming in the sea then it levels up faster.

Discovered this while trying to find a way into the "space rocket" area to the west of the city.

It doesn't feel like the numbers are tuned properly for normal things like running, jumping, and melee fighting. Forcing doors open gives a lot of xp, but opportunities for that are limited.

I might make a trip down to the beach, though.

it'is broken for sure it gives u only 20 xp no matter of it's lvl for example after killing 4 npc i got over 192 xp in cold blood but only 20 xp of atletics the lvl 2 need about 925 xp to lvl 3 so u can imagine that u need to kill 150 npc lol to get to lvl 3 with is f ridiculous

athetlics is busted, slowest skill to raise. Which is weird because it should be the easiest one, just simply running around town or parkour should raise athetlics

I found that you need to totally fatigue yourself 4-5 times to get the 20XP. So jumping and punching will fatigue you. After running out of stamina 4-5 times I get the XP.

Athletics has incredibly slow progression. My second V runs/parkours everywhere, is primarily a melee build (leveling both street brawler and blades), and currently I am at 5 athletics. I haven't really examined it, but it seems to level fastest while swimming, but even then it is incredibly slow.

Edit: because of the suspicion that ath ties to stamina use, I have not taken any perks that reduce stamina use

I've literally sprinted across the entire badlads, just to see what would happen with my athletics, and I didn't gain a level.

So far, the only thing I've noticed give me athletics exp is jumping over obstacles. Bunny hopping doesn't seem to work either (or is so small as to be non-existant).

My guess is that athletic's trigger is a left over from wall running that never got updated.

Gentlemen, i quote all those posts to increase the chances each of you will read the following - which is likely to solve your problem with Athletics skill.

Berserk + melee combat - gives massive amounts of Athletics XP. Each hit on an enemy while under Berserk effects - gives Athletics XP, and i have the impression the more the damage is done, the more Athletics XP is given per hit.

Something like 100k / hour of Athletics experience is doable with this method, i recon.

So, the best way to level Athletics i know of - is the following:

- in order to be able to do quick grind loops, play in 1.12 (in 1.2, they disabled quick mobs respawn). My favorite grind loop is to the south from Valentino Valley fast travel point, consists of 9 groups each being 3 valentinos (no 6th street gangs at all), and takes a bit under a minute to complete if played well, during which time all 9 groups respawn;

- in order to remain alive despite all the hasty melee combat, be sure to go for this at level 50, with 5k+ armor, health boosts and as many defensive perks (including Cold Blood tree) and cyberware as you can get;

- in order to get the most Athletics experience out of this, use some melee weapon which insta-kills your enemies with regular attack, use highest grade Berserk unit your Body stat allows to get, and depending on your situation also consider using berserk unit mods and/or cyberware which increase berserk duration and/or reduce Berserk cooldown.

P.S. CDPR nerfed mobs respawn in 1.2 to make fast "grind loops" impossible, i hear; but this would still work times better than any other method to grind Athletics even in 1.2, you just do it together with your melee-weapon-skill grinding by either just running around through neighbourhoods (no closed loops) and mopping up gangs, and/or you use berserk+melee during main and/or side jobs as well.

 

[Catastrophe]

I only ever saw it progress was a random knife fight lol