- Sprint
What does sprint to do the game?
Sprint reduces base movement speed - In every engagement against another player, strafe is lessened and therefore it is easier to hit other players.
Sprint stretches the map - Bigger maps(Or at least the ilussion of bigger maps because of FOV), means the distance between battles are increased. When the range between 2 players are increased, movement is less effective, and it is thereforem easier to hit players. Imagine this: If someone is 100 meters away from you, it will take a long time for them to run across your screen, and you will then have lots of time to attack them. If someone is 10 meters away from you, it will only take a few seconds.
Another thing to note is that when players are far away from you, is that the spartan can fit the whole reticule, and there is no way to distinguish, between head and body. In close combat if you want a headshot with the BR, you have to aim in the head. You can try this yourself. Is it easier to kill people in close combat or not, in Halo CE.
Sprint largens explosions to support for the increased movement speed - With bigger explosions you have a bigger margin of error when you throw grenades for example.
Sprint lowers the shield - Less shield, means fewer bullets to hit. You don’t have to hold your reticule on the enemy for as long. It’s like “how long can you balance on a thin line”? Normally lower shields wouldn’t necessary decrease the skill gap, but with the amount of aim assist and low strafe, it does.
Sprint adds to unpredictability - When you can move at more than 1 movement speed at choice the ability skill to predict opponents becomes less viable. Sprint adds a bit of randomness to the game.
Sprint removes a part of the map positioning skill - In Halo 1-3 it was hard to run away if you placed yourself in a bad position. In Halo Reach till 5, it is not. A part of it comes from the fact that sprint removes the ability to shoot, and the player chasing cannot shoot them at them while they run and you chase them.
Sprint toys with spaws - No one except the developers are exactly sure how the spawning system works (except Halo 1) but we can predict it somehow. The opponents will not spawn where you are, and they will not spawn where players have just died. If you practice enough, you can place yourself on different parts on the map and spawn kill people. When players are sprinting around the map and changing position twice as fast, spawn killing diminishes and becomes luck instead.
Sprint does not punish players who die as much anymore - With sprint players sprint right back at were they died, and help their teammates.
Clamber. While I am personally okey with this as an ability it does in fact lower the skill gap.
In Halo 1-4 we had something called skill jumps. In Halo 5 they are non-existant. Skill jumps are jumps rewarding jumps if you managed to pull them off, but often punished you by death if you failed. Often, the harder, the more rewarding, and some of the hardest jumps could take months to practice. In Halo 5 these jumps are replaced by “click to clamber”, and every jump is a jump you can get straight of the bat.
3. Jump. Halo 5 has a very low jump height. The lower the jump height the less you have to move your aim in the Y-direction, and keep your reticule closer to it's original starting point. It's the same as strafing, but strafing works in the direction of X.Aim assist.
I am unsure how much sticky aim this game has compared to other Halo games (It’s very hard to test without custom games, and especially with such a low strafe), but the magnetism is definetly comparable to Halo 4 (Which had a lot). More magnetism means that you can miss the opponent, but the bullets follow the enemies and you will still gain a hit. This is to compensate for lagg, but 343 exaggerating slightly … A LOT!
Radar.
The radar spaning from Halo Reach to Halo 5 tells you when people are coming for you, and if they are below, or above you. In Halo 1-3 the radar did not do this, and you could therefore use tricks and jumps to outsmart your opponent. Snipe 1 to Snipe 2 or the other way around was a common way to spin the head of your opponents in Halo 3.
No friendly fire. When you remove something as important to gameplay as friendly fire you really have one less thing to be concerened about. SPAM THOSE GRENADES TO KILL EVERYONE except your teammates.
This is all I can think of at the moment but I am sure I can think of more as this thread is getting discussed. It will get updated.
And one last question, if Halo 5 feels like Halo, why does the older Halo’s feel outdated and slow? Halo 5 is therefore not the same as Halo 1-3 and cannot feel the same, thus Halo 5 is not Halo or at least not the same as the original trilogy Halo.