Oblivion:Passive Player Speed
One aspect of route logic that is important is to have a high amount of passive player speed. While methods like Potion Stacking or Spell Stacking can yield a high amount of movement speed, these setups often require extremely frequent and tedious refresh times that are only worth it for isolated sections of the route, such as Map Exploration. The goal is to have a high permanent player speed throughout the run so that the player can focus solely on the flow of quest completion, skill books, Nirnroot, etc.
Movement Speed Basics
The following factors calculate into your movement speed, assuming that the player is running on land as is the case throughout the run:
- The character's Speed attribute value.
- The character's Athletics skill level.
- Whether or not the character has a weapon unsheathed.
- Equipped weapon/armor weight (unless you are a master of Light Armor or Heavy Armor, in which case the associated items are considered weightless).
- The character's height.
For a more detailed breakdown of movement formulas when considering other types of movement, such as sneaking or swimming, refer to the UESP article about movement formulas.
Athletics vs. Speed
Athletics and Speed each affect your overall movement speed slightly differently, but it is better to have a balance of both instead of boosting only one of the two stats. According to analysis of how movement formulas work, it appears that the optimal ratio of Athletics to Speed is to have 74 more Speed than Athletics.
Other Considerations
According to the UESP article about races, the High Elf is the tallest race in the game, moving 10% faster than most other races. Nord is the second tallest, and male Bosmer is the shortest. In the 100% route, we use the Female High Elf for several reasons, with passive movement speed being one of them.
Since unsheathing a weapon reduces movement speed, it is optimal to have it sheathed as often as possible. In the 100% route we do not actually wear armor for extended periods of time, but we do carry the Apotheosis weapon, adding a very slight penalty to our movement speed.
Acquiring Passive Speed
Currently we have a few main methods of acquiring passive speed:
- Perma Enchanting, via Early Arcane University Access as well as a decent amount of gold.
- Raising Speed/Athletics via farming and leveling up.
- Raising Speed/Athletics via the Class Reset glitch at a high level via the Infinite Level-Up glitch
- Underflowing Athletics.
Conveniently, all of these methods can be executed at the start of the game via the various glitches mentioned. Perma enchanting and Class Reset are currently the most effective and convenient methods of acquiring Speed/Athletics quickly.
Optimizing Perma Enchanting
We have to repeat the perma enchanting cycle 25+ times depending on our desired stats, making it essential to optimize the process of creating/duping rings. Currently, the fastest method is the following:
- Dupe all the required items, such as rings, weapons, armor, and Filled Grand Soul Gems.
- At the Altar of Enchanting, make all of the rings at once for all effects.
- Activate the Altar.
- Name the ring something unique, typically starting with single digit numbers to place each ring near the top of the inventory.
- Choose the Filled Grand Soul Gem.
- Choose the effect.
- Double click so that the first click confirms the effect settings and the second click confirms creating the enchanted item.
- Drop your scrolls so that you have a 2 stack to work with, then find a clear spot.
- Dupe all of the rings at once within your inventory without closing it, repeatedly clicking on the 2 scroll stack and dropping another ring back and forth.
- Pick up all copies of all duped rings so that you now have 2 of every ring.
- Perform the perma enchant cycle on all items in your inventory without closing it, equipping a ring, clicking the 2 scroll stack, and dropping the unequipped copy of the ring back repeatedly.
Currently we are considering further improvements, such as equipping multiple rings at once.