> > > Sprint could also be improved and made more competitive by making someone who is taking fire while sprinting have a slower speed relative to damage done or stop altogether. That way it would just be used to move across the map, not for getting away from danger, thereby forcing people to strafe.
> >
> > That still doesn’t change sprints negative influence on map designs. Sprint can be made more competitive but the competitive players don’t want it. So what is the purpose? The most competitive form of sprint is there being none.
>
> There are plenty of Competitive games with sprint. Halo 4 will be one of them seeing as sprint was a popular AA from Halo Reach. Also it doesn’t even have to be considered a AA since anyone can sprint. Targets who move only at one set speed are easier top hit sprint allows for more depth in encounters. I would like to see sprint and evade be carried over which seems to be very very likely. Competitive Halo should be like it was years ago when the only thing that mattered was winning not stats and complaining.
What competitive games? I don’t know a single competitive arena shooter that would’ve had sprint. Sprint simply doesn’t belong to arena shooters, that’s because of the unigue style of gameplay which I won’t go into further detail about. But popularity alone shouldn’t be the deciding factor for inclusion of sprint in Halo 4. The feature really doesn’t have any reason to be in the game.
Sprint gives a false sense of depth. In reality it only overcomplicates the game. map design for example is always affected by sprint. With sprints jumps that are hard without sprint become easy. This means you have to make jumps that are hard with sprint. This in turns makes player that has ran out of sprint unable to pursue an evading opponent, thus limiting their gameplay abilities and thereby the depth of the game.
The second effect on map design is the stretching of maps. Inclusion of sprint creates long sightlines where they shouldn’t exist, small maps are an example of this. Also, not as big effect as the previous, but big map size on a map that shouldn’t be big makes the player feel slow and thereby incapable, limiting their abilities.
The last impact of sprint is the amount of random variables when pursuing an escaping opponent. Without sprint the amount of opponent’s movement pattern is somewhat predictable that an experienced player can locate the enemy. With inclusion of sprint, more variables will be present which makes predicting opponent movement hard. This may seem like a good idea as it makes the game harder, but too much random variables don’t add skill, they only add randomness which decreases skill.
Competitive Halo years ago didn’t have unnecessary mechanics such as sprint. This made gameplay deep as all the variables could be in control of the player. You see, in order for the game to work, there needs to be the right amount of variables. A single player/team of extremely experienced players should be able to be in control of all the variables at least small periods of time. Too much variables creates randomness as no one can control or even predict all the variables, thus resulting random and less competitive gameplay. Too low amount of variables on the other hand create gameplay where anyone can easily control teh variables, thus producing boring and repetitive gameplay.
Way to add depth is not to add more variables, but make the existing as deep as possible, but also to make the skill set the player needs to master deeper. Instead of adding sprint, design maps to be deeper and more efficient. Instead of adding evade, give us better strafing abilities. Simple enough gameplay makes the game deep and enjoyable. In the long run it will be much better than the cluttered, over complex gameplay where the developer has squeezed in every single mechanic they can think of.
