I know a lot of people really dislike armor abilities because of the way they create unbalanced game play, and I agree. However, I think they were done pretty poorly in Halo Reach and Halo 4, and the more I think about this sprint issue it seems that armor abilities could be a solution. Here is what I mean…
In Halo Reach and 4 a large variety of armor abilities were options in ALL modes, except for MLG settings. This is what made the map design in Reach and 4 much more complicated, since they had to design with all of these abilities in mind. So what if there were certain modes that had locked abilities to prevent this issue?
The sprint argument is so divisive, but I often hear sprint fans citing Big Team Battle as to why sprint should exist, and I did quite enjoy halo 4 Big Team Battle. As a result, what if larger modes like Warzone or Big Team Battle had armor abilites enabled, and were thus designed with this in mind, while something like competitive 4v4 Arena maps were locked to either no armor abilities, or perhaps a boost armor ability that works similar to Halo 5 (since that is often a hybrid approach I hear people supporting).
At this point 343 has already made these decisions but I am curious to what you guys think. Personally, I want a return to no sprint gameplay and I am cool with Halo 5 boost returning, but I worry that changing so much is kind of a drastic move for 343. Bringing back armor abilities like this seems more plausible to me, and can be done in a way that pleases both sides of the isle to an extent, infinitely expands custom game modes with unique abilities like jetpack, and offers more unique gameplay experiences for large hectic modes like Warzone and Big Team Battle.