The sprint discussion thread

Games Halo 5: Guardians
14364

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> > > > It’s crazy to think how big this thread got without 343 jumping in at all.
> > > >
> > > > I really miss Bungie.
> > >
> > > I played Destiny these last few years. Bungie would only show up at the forums when people would praise their game. And don’t think for a second that Bungie would not have included sprint into Halo. Destiny has weird things like blink, triple jumps and unlimited sprint artifacts.
> >
> > Destiny has the luxury of being a new IP to do what it does, halo was already an established franchise. One franchise having x gameplay doesn’t mean they’d add that same gameplay to another. Biowares mass effect and dragon age franchises are both RPG games, but they play very different from each other in terms of gameplay.
> >
> > furthermore, the original bungie(as in CE-H2 bungie) wouldn’t have included it cause their designers thought it a crutch(it’s in this thread here somewhere, direct tweet from twitter where someone asked about sprint in the original games and the developer specifically called it a “crutch” being why it wasn’t included). Reach bungie and even H3 bungie is where their direction started to change where halo went into its gameplay identity crisis. Not to mention Reach was a game giving the finger to the fans cause it was testing grounds for them and destiny since they were leaving after its launch.
>
> Okay. What is precisely your point? I say Bungie would’ve included sprint into the game if they were still making Halo. You tell that Bungie changed and was testing for Destiny during Halo Reach. So maybe the original Bungie wouldn’t have included it, but if Bungie today would have made Halo 5, they would definitely have included it. Maybe even weirder things than 343I included into the game.

First of all, Bungie already included sprint in Halo.
Second, the speculation wether or or not Bungie would’ve kept sprint is really multifaceted, it won’t do anything to the situation we find ourselves in either, where things really happened

14365

With sprint’s current incarnation, it sort of incentivises people to sprint as often as possible to get around the “warmup period” that you can get shot out of sprint, which usually leaves players stuck in an open area at default movement speed on a map with large open areas built to facilitate sprint’s inclusion in the sandbox.

Why does the current system incentivise sprinting as often as possible?

The “warmup period” is a couple of seconds where you are vulnerable to being forced out of sprint when shot; if you start sprinting before you push out into other areas of the map, the chances of you being shot out of sprint during the “warmup period” are significantly reduced, therefore you have a lower chance of succumbing to enemy fire when attempting to cover ground quickly, and if you are forced to retreat, you remain in sprint, which helps escape unwanted encounters.

This has the knock-on effect of making spartan charge more of a common occurrence. If you have players starting their sprint before they round corners - potentially exposing themselves while they are vulnerable to “de-sprint”, there is a higher potential for people to retaliate by charging, should they encounter an ememy as they round a corner.

What I propose is that they remove the healing penalty tied to sprint and replace it with “de-sprint” at all times, regardless of how long a player has been sprinting, as well as a cooldown that stops people who were “de-sprinted” from re-entering sprint straight away.

I think the healing penalty is a little bit redundant; if you’re being shot, it’s not like you are able to recover health anyway…

You could go even further by adding a momentary (one second?) movement speed penalty that kicks in after being “de-sprinted”, further punishing those who spam sprint whenever they feasibly can.

With the proposed changes, people would no longer be rewarded for sprinting as often as possible, and would instead be incentivised to carefully consider when to use sprint and when remain weapon-at-the-ready.

14366

Sprint, thrust, and spartan abilities need to be outright removed and the base movement speed slightly increased. This game would have been top notch without these abilities that have no place in Halo.

Halo 2 and 3 were the peak of the franchise for casual AND pro players. What didn’t they have? (rhetorical)

14367

> 2659268351405841;14366:
> Sprint, thrust, and spartan abilities need to be outright removed and the base movement speed slightly increased. This game would have been top notch without these abilities that have no place in Halo.
>
> Halo 2 and 3 were the peak of the franchise for casual AND pro players. What didn’t they have? (rhetorical)

“Halo 2 and 3 were the peak of the franchise for casual AND pro players.”

I feel like you can legitimately call 2/3 peak for casuals or pros, but not both, because each player can only be one of those things, and speaking for the other as a group seems suspicious to me. As the king of casuals I can tell you that from my perspective Halo 2 had the novelty of xbox live and Halo 3 had story closure. Neither, imo, was a Halo high point, gameplay-wise.

14368

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> If the melee option was never in Halo 3, people would hate it if it was implemented now, because “it’s just not Halo”. But Halo was there, so everybody is fine with it.
>
> Games can change. If we can’t run from the enemy when we’re in danger, but we would just take a walk… I don’t know man. That would be really weird.

Given what evidence? Assassinations were added, contested, but they stayed because they weren’t deemed that disruptive as claimed. I wouldn’t have hated the intro of a melee system since they didn’t go overboard adding a hold rb to throw your weapon like a boomerang or something really dumb like tying a bs melee mechanic to something like sprint…oh…wait…

14369

I don’t play Halo 5 as much as I’d played the older Halo titles. That being said, i kinda like Sprint in the beginning but now I can’t stand it. The other spartan abilities are fine like thruster, spartan charge, etc. Maybe In Halo 6, 343 could replace sprint with a Mini speed boost to base speed that ties into your thruster energy. That way you can still do spartan charge( you’ll have to be at the maximum speed to do it) and sliding. My point, all spartan abilities should be tied to thruster energy.

14370

> 2533274810001991;14365:
> What I propose is that they remove the healing penalty tied to sprint and replace it with “de-sprint” at all times, regardless of how long a player has been sprinting, as well as a cooldown that stops people who were “de-sprinted” from re-entering sprint straight away.
>
> I think the healing penalty is a little bit redundant; if you’re being shot, it’s not like you are able to recover health anyway…
>
> You could go even further by adding a momentary (one second?) movement speed penalty that kicks in after being “de-sprinted”, further punishing those who spam sprint whenever they feasibly can.
>
> With the proposed changes, people would no longer be rewarded for sprinting as often as possible, and would instead be incentivised to carefully consider when to use sprint and when remain weapon-at-the-ready.

The problem with this is that it’s not a user friendly implementation. External influences affecting your movement is about one of the most disempowering and frustrating things that can happen in a game which is so reliant on movement. It feels absolutely jarring to the player and does not help creating a fun gameplay experience. If you are in a situation where these sorts of nerfs have to be considered on a mechanic that doesn’t have much positive things going for it to begin with, it’s worth considering whether it might be a better idea to get rid of the mechanic altogether.

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> > 2659268351405841;14366:
> > Sprint, thrust, and spartan abilities need to be outright removed and the base movement speed slightly increased. This game would have been top notch without these abilities that have no place in Halo.
> >
> > Halo 2 and 3 were the peak of the franchise for casual AND pro players. What didn’t they have? (rhetorical)
>
> “Halo 2 and 3 were the peak of the franchise for casual AND pro players.”
>
> I feel like you can legitimately call 2/3 peak for casuals or pros, but not both, because each player can only be one of those things, and speaking for the other as a group seems suspicious to me. As the king of casuals I can tell you that from my perspective Halo 2 had the novelty of xbox live and Halo 3 had story closure. Neither, imo, was a Halo high point, gameplay-wise.

I think one could make the argument that even if you’re not a competitive player, the competitive community has been so outspoken and unanimous with their opinions on the direction of Halo’s gameplay that you can know what the consensus is even if you’re not one of them. With that said, I think that you can’t speak for everyone, even in the group you belong in. I’ve certainly seen casual players with vastly varying opinions, and by virtue of being “casual” their vision for the game is much less unified than the vision of competitive players who you’d expect to want approximately the same thing.

I don’t think you can make a blanket statement like “Halo X was the peak of the franchise for casual players” because “casual players” is a very disparate group by virtue of essentially being the group of all players who are not competitive. I also believe you would have many players who have played Halo CE competitively strongly disagree with the notion that either Halo 2 or 3 would somehow be the peak of Halo for competitive players.

14371

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> > What I propose is that they remove the healing penalty tied to sprint and replace it with “de-sprint” at all times, regardless of how long a player has been sprinting, as well as a cooldown that stops people who were “de-sprinted” from re-entering sprint straight away.
> >
> > I think the healing penalty is a little bit redundant; if you’re being shot, it’s not like you are able to recover health anyway…
> >
> > You could go even further by adding a momentary (one second?) movement speed penalty that kicks in after being “de-sprinted”, further punishing those who spam sprint whenever they feasibly can.
> >
> > With the proposed changes, people would no longer be rewarded for sprinting as often as possible, and would instead be incentivised to carefully consider when to use sprint and when remain weapon-at-the-ready.
>
> The problem with this is that it’s not a user friendly implementation. External influences affecting your movement is about one of the most disempowering and frustrating things that can happen in a game which is so reliant on movement. It feels absolutely jarring to the player and does not help creating a fun gameplay experience. If you are in a situation where these sorts of nerfs have to be considered on a mechanic that doesn’t have much positive things going for it to begin with, it’s worth considering whether it might be a better idea to get rid of the mechanic altogether.

The “de-sprint” mechanic already exists, I just think it should be effective at all times for consistency and to enforce the idea that sprint should not be used with reckless abandon.

I agree that external influences on movement can certainly be annoying, I distinctly remember how frustrating it was being kept off the ground by the Concussion Rifle in Reach. My point is that this mechanic already exists and only takes effect after a specific, completely preventable action is being performed, a lot like being caught clambering.

I don’t think sprint is going anywhere soon, so I’m proposing a way to mitigate it’s impact on the sandbox.

Edit: I should mention that the most annoying influences on gameplay I touched on in my studies were:

  • things that happen without adequate communication. - when an action has inconsistent results. - when control is completely removed from the player.In regards to the communication of gameplay mechanics, Halo 5 is actually the most extensive in the franchise, with scope flares, zoom animations and lights, hit markers, and kill confirmation sound effects.
14372

Honestly at this point I just want sprint, ground pound (melee latency it causes), spartan charge (I understand they’re trying to bandaid the double melee problem but they should just remove sprint),and ads (it doesn’t feel haloish as subjective a statement that is) gone.I don’t care about slide,thrust,clamber,or stabilizers.

14373

I like sprint haha.

14374

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> Honestly at this point I just want sprint, ground pound (melee latency it causes), spartan charge (I understand they’re trying to bandaid the double melee problem but they should just remove sprint),and ads (it doesn’t feel haloish as subjective a statement that is) gone.I don’t care about slide,thrust,clamber,or stabilizers.

Thrust and clamber are as equally bad as sprint. Why? Ill explain:

Clamber: Removes skill jumps. OK. So, in classic Halo, there were usually a few ways to get to power weapons, but there was almost always a quicker way of getting to them (or a power up or a map control position etc) by skill jumping. Now, with Halo 5, that is gone due to clamber. Next, all walls need to be higher so you cannot clamber over them. In classic games, there were walls high enough to nade over or jump and shoot (not jump over). Now with clamber +thrust, these are gone.

Thruster: I’ll be honest, I like this a little. It should be kept as an option for custom games ( guess the same goes for ground pound). However, for arena maps, much like clamber, it forces the design to change. E.g Halo 3, the map “narrows” (from memory, may be wrong) had two man cannons. When on the man cannons, you had a quick, yet vulnerable way of accessing the other/enemy side of the map only. Now, lets say thrusters are added, you now can thrust mid jump from the man cannon onto the bridge. Some may find this fun, but it removes the point of map control if its so easy to get up there. This is the “worst case” example, but other examples include having wider lanes/corridors (much like longer corridors and maps for sprint to keep the pace similar) to compensate for the possibility of players thrusting sideways in them. And finally, thrusters makes it far too easy to dodge grenades, imo.

Pretty much all of the above are design limitations, and not my opinions. If I were to create the “perfect” Halo game, I’d do this:

Have weapons “feel” like Halo 2 (to this day the H3 BR feels off to me, not as good as 2, but thats my opinion). Then, start with a classic formula to design the maps for arena. Next, have them tested with different adjustments of base speed to get the perfect pace (like 110% for Halo 3 MLG- from memory). Sprint, Charge, Clamber, Ground pound, Thrust are gone during this. Then add in fresh new power ups (melee damage boost, speed boost- some of my ideas) as well as power weapons. Test again per map. If the power weapons and power ups do not provide enough variety for certain maps, then add in pickup abilites. The will include thruster pack (limited use, 2 times with same H5 cooldown inbetween but it is faster, same distance). Ground pound (but it activates instantly to make up for it being a single pickup). There you go. Thats my perfect halo. Have the “armour abilites” be the same as power ups, as map pickups rather than permanent abilites. They’ll have Limited uses AND require map control/map knowledge to obtain them. This will increase variety and maintain competition, and with maps that these abilites don’t work on? SImple, remove that pickup from that map. Unlike the current formula, where you have to redesign the map to fit the formula. This is also good because you can create special abilites unique to certain maps as map pickups, without effecting game design on other maps!

I honestly think this is the best way to go, if you have any any feedback or if there is a key detail I may have missed by all means respond. I’d love to hear responses on this idea.

14375

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> > 2535449545792902;14372:
> > Honestly at this point I just want sprint, ground pound (melee latency it causes), spartan charge (I understand they’re trying to bandaid the double melee problem but they should just remove sprint),and ads (it doesn’t feel haloish as subjective a statement that is) gone.I don’t care about slide,thrust,clamber,or stabilizers.
>
> Clamber: Removes skill jumps. OK. So, in classic Halo, there were usually a few ways to get to power weapons, but there was almost always a quicker way of getting to them (or a power up or a map control position etc) by skill jumping. Now, with Halo 5, that is gone due to clamber. Next, all walls need to be higher so you cannot clamber over them. In classic games, there were walls high enough to nade over or jump and shoot (not jump over). Now with clamber +thrust, these are gone.

Clamber can easily be fixed by simply not making it a requirement to get anywhere. Reduce the walls anyway, and then slow down the animation for Clamber, and also tighten the amount of room needed for Clamber to activate.

That way, there’s a small skill gap for those who can grenade jump or crouch jump or the sort and never slow down, but those who can’t have an alternate method but puts them at a disadvantage because they can’t shoot while clambering.

14376

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> > > 2535449545792902;14372:
> > > Honestly at this point I just want sprint, ground pound (melee latency it causes), spartan charge (I understand they’re trying to bandaid the double melee problem but they should just remove sprint),and ads (it doesn’t feel haloish as subjective a statement that is) gone.I don’t care about slide,thrust,clamber,or stabilizers.
> >
> > Clamber: Removes skill jumps. OK. So, in classic Halo, there were usually a few ways to get to power weapons, but there was almost always a quicker way of getting to them (or a power up or a map control position etc) by skill jumping. Now, with Halo 5, that is gone due to clamber. Next, all walls need to be higher so you cannot clamber over them. In classic games, there were walls high enough to nade over or jump and shoot (not jump over). Now with clamber +thrust, these are gone.
>
> Clamber can easily be fixed by simply not making it a requirement to get anywhere. Reduce the walls anyway, and then slow down the animation for Clamber, and also tighten the amount of room needed for Clamber to activate.
>
> That way, there’s a small skill gap for those who can grenade jump or crouch jump or the sort and never slow down, but those who can’t have an alternate method but puts them at a disadvantage because they can’t shoot while clambering.

That is a good idea, but why not just take it out completely and force skill jumps if the player wants the quickest way to get a to a power weapon/power up/map control position? What does it add to the game to warrant the effort to implement it?

14377

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> > > 2533274875084332;14374:
> > > > 2535449545792902;14372:
> > > > Honestly at this point I just want sprint, ground pound (melee latency it causes), spartan charge (I understand they’re trying to bandaid the double melee problem but they should just remove sprint),and ads (it doesn’t feel haloish as subjective a statement that is) gone.I don’t care about slide,thrust,clamber,or stabilizers.
> > >
> > > Clamber: Removes skill jumps. OK. So, in classic Halo, there were usually a few ways to get to power weapons, but there was almost always a quicker way of getting to them (or a power up or a map control position etc) by skill jumping. Now, with Halo 5, that is gone due to clamber. Next, all walls need to be higher so you cannot clamber over them. In classic games, there were walls high enough to nade over or jump and shoot (not jump over). Now with clamber +thrust, these are gone.
> >
> > Clamber can easily be fixed by simply not making it a requirement to get anywhere. Reduce the walls anyway, and then slow down the animation for Clamber, and also tighten the amount of room needed for Clamber to activate.
> >
> > That way, there’s a small skill gap for those who can grenade jump or crouch jump or the sort and never slow down, but those who can’t have an alternate method but puts them at a disadvantage because they can’t shoot while clambering.
>
> That is a good idea, but why not just take it out completely and force skill jumps if the player wants the quickest way to get a to a power weapon/power up/map control position? What does it add to the game to warrant the effort to implement it?

This is assuming they don’t remove Clamber (because chances are they won’t anyway), but simply modify it like they did with Sprint.

The only way I can justify this reasoning is to prove an access to higher jumps without having to necessarily be good at the game, but also pushes players to use the “harder” method to get around the drawbacks.

Essentially, it lowers the skill floor, but also raises the skill ceiling.

Also it can be there in case you missed regular jumps and stuff like that.

14378

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> With the proposed changes, people would no longer be rewarded for sprinting as often as possible, and would instead be incentivised to carefully consider when to use sprint and when remain weapon-at-the-ready.

Maybe I’m missing something, but wouldn’t those, apart from shield regen, make players stuck even more in large open areas? Especially if it’d be like you say, less of an incentive to sprint as much as possible, and once you sprint you can get shot out of it at all times.

14379

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> > With the proposed changes, people would no longer be rewarded for sprinting as often as possible, and would instead be incentivised to carefully consider when to use sprint and when remain weapon-at-the-ready.
>
> Maybe I’m missing something, but wouldn’t those, apart from shield regen, make players stuck even more in large open areas? Especially if it’d be like you say, less of an incentive to sprint as much as possible, and once you sprint you can get shot out of it at all times.

If players lose that “get out of jail free” option: that remaining in sprint past the warmup grants, then the players who understand the drawbacks of sprinting won’t push into open areas without care.

There would definitely be an adjustment period, where players will be caught with their pants down sprinting, but I believe that most people will catch on quickly. Open areas are already dangerous in Halo 5’s low TTK sandbox so I don’t think it would take much of a mental shift to understand the risks of using sprint recklessly.

Besides, oversized areas on maps are another kettle of fish, however, if you make sprint less reliable, then you can shrink the maps a bit to compensate.

14380

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> > > > > 2535449545792902;14372:
> > > > > Honestly at this point I just want sprint, ground pound (melee latency it causes), spartan charge (I understand they’re trying to bandaid the double melee problem but they should just remove sprint),and ads (it doesn’t feel haloish as subjective a statement that is) gone.I don’t care about slide,thrust,clamber,or stabilizers.
> > > >
> > > > Clamber: Removes skill jumps. OK. So, in classic Halo, there were usually a few ways to get to power weapons, but there was almost always a quicker way of getting to them (or a power up or a map control position etc) by skill jumping. Now, with Halo 5, that is gone due to clamber. Next, all walls need to be higher so you cannot clamber over them. In classic games, there were walls high enough to nade over or jump and shoot (not jump over). Now with clamber +thrust, these are gone.
> > >
> > > Clamber can easily be fixed by simply not making it a requirement to get anywhere. Reduce the walls anyway, and then slow down the animation for Clamber, and also tighten the amount of room needed for Clamber to activate.
> > >
> > > That way, there’s a small skill gap for those who can grenade jump or crouch jump or the sort and never slow down, but those who can’t have an alternate method but puts them at a disadvantage because they can’t shoot while clambering.
> >
> > That is a good idea, but why not just take it out completely and force skill jumps if the player wants the quickest way to get a to a power weapon/power up/map control position? What does it add to the game to warrant the effort to implement it?
>
> This is assuming they don’t remove Clamber (because chances are they won’t anyway), but simply modify it like they did with Sprint.
>
> The only way I can justify this reasoning is to prove an access to higher jumps without having to necessarily be good at the game, but also pushes players to use the “harder” method to get around the drawbacks.
>
> Essentially, it lowers the skill floor, but also raises the skill ceiling.
>
> Also it can be there in case you missed regular jumps and stuff like that.

Yes that makes sense, I agree. If they were not to remove clamber, then going with what you have laid out is certainly better than what we currently have.

14381

I love sprint because it ads a faster pace to the game but without sprint its very slow

14382

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> > 2533274795123910;14378:
> > > 2533274810001991;14365:
> > > With the proposed changes, people would no longer be rewarded for sprinting as often as possible, and would instead be incentivised to carefully consider when to use sprint and when remain weapon-at-the-ready.
> >
> > Maybe I’m missing something, but wouldn’t those, apart from shield regen, make players stuck even more in large open areas? Especially if it’d be like you say, less of an incentive to sprint as much as possible, and once you sprint you can get shot out of it at all times.
>
> If players lose that “get out of jail free” option: that remaining in sprint past the warmup grants, then the players who understand the drawbacks of sprinting won’t push into open areas without care.
>
> There would definitely be an adjustment period, where players will be caught with their pants down sprinting, but I believe that most people will catch on quickly. Open areas are already dangerous in Halo 5’s low TTK sandbox so I don’t think it would take much of a mental shift to understand the brevity of using sprint recklessly.
>
> Besides, oversized areas on maps are another kettle of fish, however, if you make sprint less reliable, then you can shrink the maps a bit to compensate.

So what’d be left of sprint’s usability is essentialy a transport aspect in smaller areas, corridors and similar locations. Couple that with an assumption that map size could be decreased.

Feels like we’re one step short of removing it altogether.

14383

> 2535467949774170;14381:
> I love sprint because it ads a faster pace to the game but without sprint its very slow

Faster pace?
Time to travel on a map is adjusted according to what the speed of a player is. 10 seconds of travel in Halo 3 at BMS is still 10 seconds of travel in Halo 4 / Halo 5 at full sprint speed. The difference is distance travelled as it’s longer.

Other type of game pace?
Look at Doom, the newer one, or the newest Unreal Tournament, both lacking sprint, are these two games slow paced?

Is it not that pace? Is it the sense of speed?
A game with a high FoV will give you the sensation of going at high speeds, even if you go the same speed in both cases, one case of low FoV and one case of high FoV.

What pace are you refering to?