Sprint has been a controversial topic since its implementation in Halo Reach. But, by its very nature, it hurts Halo, and I am going to explain why.
Remember Midship in Halo 2? Or Heretic from Halo 3? Well they created a remake of those classics in Halo 5 Guardians and that remake was named Truth.
Now, Truth looks pretty similar to Midship. And Heretic. In fact, I can’t really see much difference. Except for one. One glaring issue that is hurting classic Halo map design deeply. THE MAP IS TWICE AS BIG!
The only reason for this oversized remake is because it was needed to balance sprint. Can you imagine playing classic Midship with the Halo 5 abilities on 4v4? It would be ridiculous! Rarely would you get the chance to have a 1v1 engagement without another player punching you in the back 10 seconds after you killed them. So 343 upped the map sizes to accommodate sprint. No biggie, right?
Nope.
You see, part of what made some of the classic Halo maps so special was their variety. And a big part of that variety came in the form of maps like lockout, warlord and midship. What made these maps special was the close-quarters combat they provided, with tight corridors, sharp turns, and engagements that forced you to think about how you approached a fight milliseconds before it began. But none of these maps would work with sprint, so they must be either resized or scrapped, losing a big part of what made Halo’s maps so varied. I hear a lot of complaints that Halo’s maps feel the same (at least in Arena, but then there are only 4 Warzone maps) and I think that this problem is a fundamental part of why.
There are other issues with sprint that I am less familiar with, so if you know any, please let me know below.
I understand that some people like sprint, and feel free to post your opinions below. But remember, have debates, not arguments.
Incoming comments along the lines of “Sprint is fine”, “It does nothing wrong” and my personal favourite, “It’s evolutionary and immersive.” Smh.
if sprint was scrapped and the other abilitys were still there minus clamber… the game would be massively improved. we can have lockout or midship sized maps again. we can have foundation sized maps again. warlock. all really good CQB maps
also inb4 the 343 white knights defending sprint.
Good to see how one feature changes your perspective on a game even if it is a matter of how mobile your SPARTAN can or cannot be.
Youre entitled to an opinion, even if the effects it has on your attitude towards the game impact it a little too much.
> 2533274994400673;4:
> Good to see how one feature changes your perspective on a game even if it is a matter of how mobile your SPARTAN can or cannot be.
>
> Youre entitled to an opinion, even if the effects it has on your attitude towards the game impact it a little too much.
im a purist read my bio
> 2533274994400673;4:
> Good to see how one feature changes your perspective on a game even if it is a matter of how mobile your SPARTAN can or cannot be.
>
> Youre entitled to an opinion, even if the effects it has on your attitude towards the game impact it a little too much.
It is a full blown fact that sprint has effected nearly EVERYTHING about Halo’s core design and balance. Do you people honestly just think a sprint mechanic just magically works when you shoehorn it into a franchise that was never designed for it? The opinion part comes in on what you think of it AND the necessary balancing acts that come along with it.
> 2533274795515722;5:
> > 2533274994400673;4:
> > Good to see how one feature changes your perspective on a game even if it is a matter of how mobile your SPARTAN can or cannot be.
> >
> > Youre entitled to an opinion, even if the effects it has on your attitude towards the game impact it a little too much.
>
>
> im a purist read my bio
I’ll just take your word for it and save me a few seconds of looking it up lol
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> > 2533274994400673;4:
> > Good to see how one feature changes your perspective on a game even if it is a matter of how mobile your SPARTAN can or cannot be.
> >
> > Youre entitled to an opinion, even if the effects it has on your attitude towards the game impact it a little too much.
>
>
> It is a full blown fact that sprint has effected nearly EVERYTHING about Halo’s core design and balance. Do you people honestly just think a sprint mechanic just magically works when you shoehorn it into a franchise that was never designed for it? The opinion part comes in on what you think of it AND the necessary balancing acts that come along with it.
“You people”? Really? I hadnt even voiced my own opinion, bud, calm down.
It’s not so much as youre disappointed that it’s disheveled the core balance and just more that you’re not getting the ‘classic’ Halo experience that you feel you apparently deserve. A franchise has to evolve and change as well as its aspects, and youre either too stubborn or feel too superior to adapt your ideals towards a game that’s switched hands of studios.
Counter-arguments towards sprint depend on the context of what problem it’s supposed to be solving, as people claim it solves a lot of different problems.
“Old Halo is too slow”.
Then why go to all the effort to scale maps properly and preserve the same pace? Why not just throw sprint on small map sizes? Clearly old Halo’s pacing is actually desirable to have.
“Old Halo feels too slow.”
Now that is something much less clear and much more difficult to tackle. I can think of solutions like increasing FoV, adding the blur effect to base movement, etc, but ultimately it’s an entirely subjective matter.
“Sprint adds a certain amount of tactical depth that was lacking from Halo before.”
Short version of my response to that: I don’t consider Sword-Rushing and Flanking-Enemies-At-The-Speed-Of-Light to be beneficial to the game in the slightest.
> A franchise has to evolve and change as well as its aspects
Even assuming that’s true, that doesn’t mean it has to evolve in the specific way it is now.
That argument never ceases to annoy me.
You’ll find most competent players avoid sprinting on that map anyway…the time to raise you weapon and get your shots on target is generally life and death. Halo is always about accuracy, and I think sprint is well balanced, if not under-balanced, for this reason alone.
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> > 2533274830444029;6:
> > > 2533274994400673;4:
> > > Good to see how one feature changes your perspective on a game even if it is a matter of how mobile your SPARTAN can or cannot be.
> > >
> > > Youre entitled to an opinion, even if the effects it has on your attitude towards the game impact it a little too much.
> >
> >
> > It is a full blown fact that sprint has effected nearly EVERYTHING about Halo’s core design and balance. Do you people honestly just think a sprint mechanic just magically works when you shoehorn it into a franchise that was never designed for it? The opinion part comes in on what you think of it AND the necessary balancing acts that come along with it.
>
>
> “You people”? Really? I hadnt even voiced my own opinion, bud, calm down.
>
> It’s not so much as youre disappointed that it’s disheveled the core balance and just more that you’re not getting the ‘classic’ Halo experience that you feel you apparently deserve. A franchise has to evolve and change as well as its aspects, and youre either too stubborn or feel too superior to adapt your ideals towards a game that’s switched hands of studios.
Please point out where “evolution and change” is synonymous with “necessary and better”. The fact is Halo’s original formula never even had the chance to fail, and people keep acting like it did. And yes, it is my opinion that the classic game play is superior. I can adapt to a new game, and still hold on to that opinion just fine, thank you very much.
> 2533274819302824;9:
> > A franchise has to evolve and change as well as its aspects
>
>
> Even assuming that’s true, that doesn’t mean it has to evolve in the specific way it is now.
> That argument never ceases to annoy me.
You can say that for any game or franchise “it doesn’t have to evolve the way it is now”, that’s a matter of opinion rather than fact.
Your annoyance comes from a fact than from an argument, evolution of a franchise is inevitable, and the opinions that shape from those changes will obviously vary.
My thing is sprint makes sense from a lore side kinda. I don’t get why a spartan can’t sprint and shoot at the same time. I read the books, they clearly could. So why can’t we? In fact, the spartans could sprint faster too. I say we should buff sprint. Make us like the spartans described to us.
I fully agree!
In Halo Reach it was alright becuase sprint wasn’t always there. It was an armor ability. Reach still had smallish maps that I really enjoyed! Like Countdown, Sword Base, Powerhouse, Reflection etc…
Halo 3 contains my most favorite maps, such as Construct, Snowbound, Guardian, Lockout, High Grounds etc…
I’ve recently downloaded some maps in Halo 5 that were remakes of these. I checked them out with my buddy and we both agreed on one thing.
These remakes were huge as fork, and made the maps totally ugly in my opinion. I also downloaded a map inspired by Construct. Needless to say, that map was gigantic! And in the video of that map they said “In Halo 3 the map unfortunately didn’t have a proper way of shooting down when you were up, but in this version you can easily do that!”
That’s what I hate! Nowadays in every Halo 5 map you can nearly shoot anyone from any spot of the map. It’s ridiculous! It always was nice to feel save from the top in Construct if you were on the lower floors.
Fights happened not everywhere, but just in certain locations.
I fear we’ll never see maps like we did in the early Halo days. It’s all about this stupid “pro” -Yoink- now.
:[
You have said nothing that has not been said before. I don’t understand what are you trying to accomplish is not like 343 could just send a patch and do away with sprint. The game has been built with sprint and the Spartan abilities incorporated. Get it through your head that you don’t speak for everybody nor are you the majority therefore 343 doesn’t has to build a game for you or the same few malcontent gamers that show up for the same type of post. I enjoy how dynamic halo 5 feels. The weapons may not be perfect but Im enjoying the way the game has evolved.
> 2533274865607515;13:
> My thing is sprint makes sense from a lore side kinda. I don’t get why a spartan can’t sprint and shoot at the same time. I read the books, they clearly could. So why can’t we? In fact, the spartans could sprint faster too. I say we should buff sprint. Make us like the spartans described to us.
Lore and canon are very poor reasons to implement anything that has to do with game balance. Game mechanics should be explained with lore, not the other way around.
I hate when people talk about sprint as an evolution, to me sprint has nothing to with an evolution but rather with an unhealthy mutation…
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> I hate when people talk about sprint as an evolution, to me sprint has nothing to with an evolution but rather with an unhealthy mutation…
I hate when people talk about sprint as a unhealthy mutation. To me sprint has nothing to do with a mutation but rather a healthy evolution.
> 2533274801973487;17:
> I hate when people talk about sprint as an evolution, to me sprint has nothing to with an evolution but rather with an unhealthy mutation…
Exactly. I get really tired when people act like I’m (and many others) are against the series evolving. Just because I can point out the cause and effect of sprints cancerous influence in Halo’s overall design, does not mean I’m against evolution.
Spartans are very fast and maneuverable supersoldiers, some have been known to sprint at 60KPH, that’s 35 to 40MPH, I think sprint and clamber work well in Halo 5, I think it’s the first game in the series you actually feel superpowered, but I would implement more speed if I had the choice, the spartans in Halo 5 are faster, but I could go for a bit more, just my opinion.