[Shinobi Killfist]

Those in the 11 to 13 range are going to be those rare individuals of such ability that you might see one or two in a space of about 200 years.

I almost wish it weer that way, but the missions contacts are almost random schmucks and they have skills in the 9-10 range.  Overuse devalues high skills, at the same time too rare and it makes the players too special snowflake. 

[ZeConster]

Those in the 11 to 13 range are going to be those rare individuals of such ability that you might see one or two in a space of about 200 years.

If we assume there've been 1 billion "practitioners" (a vague term, I know) of something "in known history" (which we'll put at 10 000 years), the skill Rating meaning list in SR5 says that's 100 with a 12-13 area, or about 1 every 100 years. 11 will be significantly more common than that (and Shinobi, 8-9 (not 9-10, no) actually seems reasonable enough to me for the Missions Johnsons: if they were in the 6-7 range, their corp would use them for friendlier negotiations).
But yes, using direct description-translation, I admit the literal SR4 -> SR5 conversion is more like 0->0, 1->1, 2->2, 3->6, 4->7, 5->8, 6->10, 7->11. So even those 7s won't necessarily be 12s or 13s: 11 is more likely.

[The Smiling Bandit]

How about an experiential rubric?

It takes roughly 210 total karma  to take an active and an associated knowledge skill from 6 to 12.

At roughly 5-8 karma per run, that's somewhere from 40-80 major runs in a character's life, and two entire years of downtime, just if they focus totally on one area of expertise. Add an associated b/r skill and you've made it three years.

so if it's a week for a well planned and brought off run, then three weeks of training, pretty exclusively, a 3-5 year time investment can return total results. 


Now, for optimum realism, what's missing is the fact that peak skills become consumptive - if you're at "peak strength" you don't get there and park, you have to keep working out, training, playing etc at that level to stay at the peak.. Peaked out skills and attributes should actually require continuous maintenance in the form of a karma or lifestyle penalty.

Not to mention "in the real world" learning times change day by day, IE language learning is easy when you're young, while weight lifting is less efficient before puberty, etc as does the practicality of learning some things at all. Nobody actually takes up skateboarding or free running in their forties, for example, and age is what really de-thrones most champion fighters. So game numbers are always going to be a fuzzy approximation.

[ImaginalDisc]

OK, I'm not even a sports fan, but I am a Table Top gamer and I can min-max.

May I suggest while Michael Jordan had great attributes, a 7+ athletics with a specialty in basketball, he also clearly had (in game terms) positive qualities for basketball.

Example: "Palm the ball" You have hands large enough to easily grip a regulation basketball. + blah blah situational bonuses.

Throw is his great (compared to most people) height, which isn't a measurable Shadowrun attribute, his very long limbs, and other features and even a character with the same skills and attributes would be at a disadvantage relative to him.

Many sports favor certain body types that are practically cheating.