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> > Bungie added sprint into the game, 343 kept it in the game, and therefore it falls to people making convincing arguments as to why sprint should be removed. Ignoring obvious red herrings like H3 population and sales (anything that can’t be definitively linked with sprint), it seems that a few key arguments remain. Those arguments being larger maps, having to put a gun down, and cat and mouse gameplay. The problem with these three arguments is that they have existed in games before sprint, and therefore, to 343i or anyone with any actual say in the franchise, these problems are not related to sprint.
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> > As many Waypointers love to say, the burden of proof falls to those making the claim. In the 343 era of Halo, sprint is in the game, meaning those who want it removed should be offering compelling reasons for its removal. So far, that hasn’t happened.
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> Ah, ah, ah. While cat and mouse “existed” in earlier Halos, it was a much rarer occurrance and at that, the player never put their weapon down when running and chasing. It was a constantly engaging action, in which the “cat” had every option in their favor, since they had their opponent on the run, could chase with their weapon up, and their opponent couldn’t move faster than they could. It didn’t stop combat or slow the game’s pace down and if the person actually escaped, they did it through proper juking or map movement. In earlier Halos, you never had to contextually put your weapon down to perform a certain action or ability. And the “larger maps” weren’t designed in a way that elongated movement lanes and created dead zones due to a movement speed above your base movement speed. Large maps in older Halos were much more compact and less stretchy.
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> Now, in newer Halos with sprint, you have maps that need to be elongated in an artificial manner to justify sprint’s inclusion. This results in improperly longer lanes such as those on Truth as the best example. The best way to see this in general outside of Truth is just to solely walk around maps with Halo 5’s base movement speed. You can see how long lanes are compared to prior Halos. On top of that, sprint forces you to put your weapon down, taking control from you, and stopping combat from happening consistently. Something not present in older games. Finally, cat and mouse is a very big issue in newer Halos, compared to old. In older Halos, your best bet was to strongside out of a scenario IF you could. Even if you did, your opponent had full control, could follow you at your movement speed, and always had their weapon up. Now, when you run, you run faster than them, and you put your weapon down, as said before. If your opponent were to chase, they’d run at the same movement speed as you, but couldn’t attack, meaning you stop combat from two people, slowing the pace WAY down, and the person who’s running gets rewarded because they’re getting themselves out of, and avoiding a scenario they should’ve died in, which is amplified if they run to their teammates and entirely escape, which is common. This slows pacing, makes the game less punishing, and rewards the wrong people.
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> All of these problems are entirely related to sprint.
Let’s break this down.
First, cat and mouse gameplay. Through my own experience with the series, I’ve some across two distinctly seperate ways to approach a situation (in this case, you are the cat). In pro leagues and highly team oriented play, I’ve seen people put shots in on an enemy whenever they see them, regardless of map position, enemy position, etc. In general , casual gameplay (I’m not pro but I’m not bad by any means, so just standard casual gameplay) people prefer to wait until they can put 3-4 shots on someone before engaging. When playing as a random, giving map position away is generally not favorable, because you are mostly unaware of your teammates or if the enemy team is communicating or not. No one wants to be stuck in a 2v1. All of this leads to cat and mouse gameplay. Sprint does nothing to change any of these scenarios, because of the scaling on maps. As anti-sprinters always say, maps are scaled for sprint. Time taken to move from cover A to cover B in Halo 3 is time taken to sprint from cover A to cover B in Halo 5. So sprint doesn’t help in terms of general movement. Which leads to the chase. Anyone chasing for out of position kills is making a large mistake. Unless pro teams are playing the game wrong, most teams prefer to keep a tactical position (higher ground, power weapon spawn) and put shots in to keep an enemy out of the fight rather than give up position for a kill.
Here’s the thing. First maps are elongated for sprint, but then maps allow for escapes too easily. Seems to me like most of the time, the person was in a poor position to pick up that kill in the first place, or they are chasing when they shouldn’t. Both scenarios have played out across all the games, and the elongation you speak of combined wit abilities like thruster and ground pound should allow you to pick off a weak player, sprinting down an elongated piece of the map, without sacrificing position. But only if you were in the optimal combat position to begin with.
All of this leads to map elongation. Which is just scaled sprint maps. The elongation itself isn’t bad, it’s a physical map property. Most of the issues I find people arguing about is how the elongation creates so many dead zones. I went back and looked at some of the Halo 3/Halo 4 heatmaps. Seems to me they line up fairly well with Halo 5 heatmaps. When anti-sprinters argue about dead zones, they make it seem like Halo 3 had fights happening in all locations and Halo 5 has it focused to 2-3 spots. But generally, the heatmaps show that Halo has always had an outside/middle dominated heatmap, sort of a circle with a dot in the middle. The space between that was mainly used for traversal, which still seems to be true. So what exactly is it about the Halo 5 dead zones that make them so different to Halo 3 dead zones?
Putting your gun down to sprint is just another tactical option to me, something Halo is full of. Deciding to use a vehicle, equipment in Halo 3, even choosing when to scope with a sniper or not were all decisions that could help or hinder you.
Sprint is the same. Yes, I’m not moving around maps faster relative to other Halo games. But I’m moving faster than BMS. I’m getting to a power weapon faster, rushing to help a teammate, etc. In other game modes, like SWAT, i’m never sprinting, gun always ready to fire. It’s about choices.
The final thing I want to talk about is optimal combat speed. A lot of reasons people argue against simply not sprinting is because they feel they aren’t moving around the map at the rate they were meant to. Yet, people mention pegging joysticks as alternate movement speeds, ignore the vertical aspect of Halo 5’s gameplay, and the fact that map positioning is in constant flux after first spawn. Moving around the map at optimal combat speed is just a pretty sound byte to buff the anti-sprint arguments, but ultimately it means very little.
