There are many opinions on sprint but most of us can agree that it shouldn’t stay in the form that we currently find it in for halo 4 nor the Reach variant. Rather than removing it completely I had an odd idea but it definitely has some merits.
Instead of removing sprint completely, I think sprint should become a feature that is disabled on specific maps that are small to medium in size, or on larger maps that don’t focus on open spaces. For large maps that focus on vehicle combat we would retain our ability to sprint. For small maps we could either lose the ability completely or it could be retained by a short lunging/thrusting motion (shorter range than thruster pack most likely). I won’t get into possibilities like that for small maps because that more depends on the direction 343 decides to go with AA’s for halo 5, but the idea is that spartans are too well trained and disciplined to go sprinting around hallways and around corners when there could be an enemy at any turn, which is why we don’t even have the option to make them do so.
Large maps however that are open and are designed for vehicle combat could have the function turned on, which would allow easier movement without vehicles when necessary and allow you to travel smarter and safer without being caught in the open or spawncamped. In past halos I have always felt that was a large problem on vehicle maps, for anyone who ventured into the open was completely vulnerable to the first vehicle or sniper to notice them.
I would like to thank the member pulvis ira for the following ideas, he posted them on a similar thread:
Sprint can be changed to have an acceleration time before you reach your maximum speed, and it should also incorporate a deceleration when you try to stop sprinting or reach the end of the sprinting duration, perhaps ending in a skidding motion if you are coming to a complete stop. His third idea was to increase the turn radius so as to make it harder to switch directions.
I would like to add to his ideas and state that a player should not be allowed to reach the maximum sprint speed while taking damage (from any angle, not just from in front) or having very recently taken damage (ex being that the player was shot during acceleration and each time he is damaged his max speed is reset to the half point in the acceleration phase). I think it would be beneficial to decrease the duration of sprint so we can’t sprint as long as we currently can and slightly increase the maximum speed.
What these ideas do to the use of sprint is to change its purpose from general movement and fleeing to a more burst type motion whose purpose is to move to a new position and to make moving through open terrain less vulnerable to any moderately skilled sniper. It also changes it to a higher risk movement because the inability to turn or stop easily makes you much easier to predict and increases the time it takes to raise your weapon (except perhaps swords and hammers). This forces the player to really commit more to the movement, raising the risk that you could run into a bad situation or be unable to successfully flee when fighting was the better option.
Large maps designed for vehicles, when designed right, are usually stretched to incorporate healthy vehicle combat anyways so the typical argument that sprint breaks map design becomes nullified. In fact, in past halos larger maps often felt cramped for drivers so as to make non-vehicle based movement less cumbersome. I do agree small maps are broken by sprint. As an additional benefit it would still make more sense for supersoldiers to be able to sprint when in danger (or move fast in general) and it provides immersion into feeling that the scale of the battle is larger than what you find in other skirmishes on smaller maps.
Custom games would have sprinting become an optional setting regardless of map, because more customization is always better than less.
These are all of course just hypothetical ideas but I thought it was interesting enough to see what others thought of the possibility it presented, and thanks again to pulvis ira for his ideas on tweaking sprint that lead me to my thoughts on map specific sprinting.