Except that’s exactly what it implies when you competitively compare it to advanced mobility.
Regardless if it kills instantly upon (ACCURATE) impact, what is this supposed to mean? Insta-kills don’t belong in Halo? Then you ought to rid the game of snipers, shotguns, rocket launchers - anything that kills in a single tick. This just seems like a total non-sequitur to the notion that Ground Pound doesn’t belong in Halo, evident by the fact that it’s capable of doing something with a considerable amount of setup.
The Ground Pound is especially difficult to use accurately given how mobile everyone is. You have to account for adequate height because lower altitudes will yield less damage and have smaller radius, and you have to account for travel-time since the action is on very restrictive rails forcing you to only go where you aim which, to most players, is rather easy to avoid and punish. There’s a real, significant skill-gap in using it effectively.
Likewise, Spartan Charge is not as much of a silver bullet as you think it is. It requires a player to reach maximum sprint speed, which actually takes the longest to do in Halo 5 than in any other Halo, it demands a considerable amount of accuracy (especially in contrast to something like the Shoulder Charge in Destiny 2), and it has an incredibly long end-lag that many seasoned Halo 5 players have no trouble punishing. I support this with my own experience both as the attacker and the one retaliating.
Watch any game of high-level competitive Halo 5 and count how often you’ll see players use either, I watched a couple before writing this and I counted fewer than ten times.
It’s exhausting to see how it never dawns on the Halo community that certain things can be nerfed if they happen to be too oppressive. So many people are so quick to jump on the ‘Get Rid’ button without evaluating every aspect of something and giving it an honest shot. All for the sake of purity, I suppose.
What’s unique about it? There’s walking, jumping, crouching, sprinting, sliding, clambering - these are all ubiquitous features that you could find in just about any other FPS. Anything else can be construed as unique by being a definitive feature of Halo, and even then, they aren’t. The most significant mechanic that Halo 5 has that’s somewhat unique is the intrinsic Thrusters. Thrusting has been in Advanced Warfare, yet Halo’s been using it since Halo 4 and technically Halo Reach with the Evade armor ability, Ground Pound was also in Advanced Warfare and it was in Destiny.
Being that these are observable examples to refute the idea, don’t suddenly shift your stance to the notion that Halo 5 isn’t “unique”, which coincides with your next point which can only be read as contradictory to the preceding point:
So, was it “unique”? Or did it “follow trends”? Those are ideas that can be considered opposite to each other. And despite that, shouldn’t you be more appreciative of Halo 5 because it was “unique”, when in contrast to the point I made last night about the “vocally ubiquitous rhetoric that Halo 5 “chases trends””? It’s like you’re trying to raise the bar by making contradictory arguments.
“Halo 5 chased trends. But no! It’s also unique!” Like what?
Also:
This is what’s known as the “ad populum” fallacy - you’re appealing to a group of people that cannot be quantified nor verified to indirectly support your argument.
It would be like me making an argument and then saying “Everyone agrees!”.
Like, can I prove that? Does that comment inherently support the arguments on the topic presented?
The short answer is ‘no’.
This is the crux of the point I was trying to make. Whatever you define as “classic Halo gameplay” is only at best your own approximation because there exists groups of people with their own definition of “classic Halo gameplay” One may define Halo CE as “classic” and decry the addition of dual-wielding or the removal of health packs or the Assault Rifle. Another may define Halo CE and Halo 2 as “classic” and decry the addition of equipment. Another with Halo 3 and decry the addition of armor abilities and the reprisal of health packs.
Despite claiming to be of the same ideology, they’re not as communal as they’re once led to believe.
The awful thing that I’ve observed in this community is this pungent correlation of Halo players defining anything before Halo 4 as “classic”, and anything after Halo Reach as “not classic”, and the developer in question. Despite Halo Reach and Halo 4 playing very similarly with markedly the fewest changes in gameplay, there’s an inherent bias towards Halo Reach. It seems to further correlate to an obvious-by-now bias towards Bungie’s Halos and 343i’s Halos.
You’ve even demonstrated this phenomenon yourself by stating that Halo Infinite’s gameplay is “what you’ve(sic) been waiting for since Halo 3”. This is because Halo 5’s gameplay is actually the most like Halo Infinite’s gameplay than any other Halo: sprint, sliding, clambering, Smart-Link - amusingly, NONE of these mechanics are featured in Halo 3, but ARE featured in Halo 5. You are faulting Halo 5 for the SAME reasons you are overlooking Halo Infinite because 343i has you convinced that it’s the return of your whimsical, arbitrary definition of “classic”.
You can’t fault Halo 5 while equivocally praising Halo Infintie for the reasons that exist in both.
To that point, I NEVER insinuated, nor proclaimed that Halo 5 has “classic Halo gameplay”. I felt that in my previous comment, I very clearly expressed my disapproval for the discussion of “classic Halo gameplay” because I deem it whimsical, arbitrary, and unproductive. It’s a strawman at this point; appealing to one’s nostalgia with the word “classic”.
And:
Two more instances of the ad populum fallacy.
One more.
Are you suggesting Halo should “chase trends” because CoD walked back to “boots-on-the-ground” (I hate this phrase, MW2019 is far more hectic than AW, BOIII, and IW.)?
And what of those who found the movement mechanics of Halo 5 “enjoyable”? Don’t they also deserve a plate? Heck, until recently, many people were so vehemently against the idea of sprint being in Halo whatsoever. They started to warm-up to it when they nerfed it into what it is in Halo Infintie. Why not have the same approach to Spartan Charge, or Ground Pound?