Why do so many people hate sprint?

Games Halo Infinite
61

As I was explaining to another fellow this simply isn’t possible. Having done time in the army and having had to run with a weapon and then take a shot at even a static target let me tell you this: it sucks. It’s the absolute worst. You have to swing your arms to run because that is how humans run. When you bring your weapon up you have to make a split second decision as opposed to having thought out where your target is, your heart is pounding, breathing rapidly you cannot hold that weapon steady, you basically just try and fire as you drag your aim across your target.

Yea running and having to bring your weapon up to shoot someone sucks, it is meant to suck. You should be trying to avoid being in that situation.

1 Like
62

It’s a game, not real life. Nonetheless, I agree, it still sucks.

63

If we’re talking about H:R, 4 and 5 then sure. However, 343 made opted to slow down the sprint speed so it wouldn’t be as big a nuisance.

64

All valid points but we’re playing as Spartans, not regular soldiers. They should be strong enough to control their guns. Same thing with the bloom argument. Still, the only way to balance sprint is to lower your weapons, which is why I and others don’t like it.

1 Like
65

I understand it’s a game but I’m telling you this is how humans physiology works. Grab even a wooden gun and try sprinting across a room with the muzzle pointed down range. I guarantee that you cannot. If you want to run fast you have to move your arms. Watch any runner in the Olympics. Watch any soldier running with a gun, the weapon is dropped as the shoulders move back and forth with the legs. It’s just how we’re built. It’s a choice. You want to drink all night but you don’t want a hangover. You can have one or the other. That’s it

2 Likes
66

And that brings up my other point, why include it in the first place? It doesn’t do much and sprint being any faster would have too great of an affect on gameplay. It just feels like a pointless addition.

67

Imagine simply walking from destination to destination just to preserve an aesthetic of a past game.

2 Likes
68

Got it you have no counter to my point and have resorted to petty comments.

69

This question again?
Alright then.

Sprinting does a couple things -

  • Makes small maps feel smaller
  • Makes vehicles mostly optional of medium maps

Halo Reach did it properly because it was a tactical choice to have the ability to sprint, mainly because it was an armor ability.

  • Sprint - You move 25% faster for a short period of time, allowing you to cover more ground.
  • Jet Pack - You can now boost vertically to get around the map’s geometry in order to get to a higher level or minimize fall damage to get to a lower level.
  • Active Camo - You jam the local radar and you are difficult to be seen at a distance but a keen eye can possibly see you up close.
  • Hologram - You can distract your enemy to waste time and ammo shooting at a false target or provide false callouts such as “Two Blues heading up the ramp!” when really it is just one blue who is pulling distraction for the majority of the team to flank to the side.
  • Armor Lock - You see a vehicle or a rocket coming towards you? You can act quickly enough to not die from the impact, and possibly EMP the vehicle; all at the cost of remaining stationary for a short period.
  • Drop Shield - A combination of Drop Shield and Regen Field from Halo 3. All players inside the bubble are shielded from outside damage and have a health-&-shield regen effect. But the shield can be broken with excessive gunfire.
  • Evade - You can become a slippery boi with sudden jump-rolls to the side, advancing, or retreating. This allows you to suddenly rush an enemy, jump back from a sword lunge, or dodge a grenade throw.

Each of these seven abilities were valuable and gave you an edge in every regard, but you couldn’t have two at once; so it was a tactical choice for you to select one over the other in game modes that provided Armor Ability options during initial spawn/respawn periods.

Choosing Sprint over the others gave you an arguable advantage since there were seven options that were able to be selected. Which meant that not everyone could sprint at once. Thus allowing the following advantage options -

  • Get to the objective before most other players because you could sprint, which was helpful in CTF, KotH, Assault, Territories, and Oddball.
  • Regroup with your teammates faster than most other players, so you could provide surprise reinforcements during a gunfight.
  • Retreat quickly if you suddenly faced insurmountable odds. You just respawned and you see three enemies, one with a Rocket Launcher? Best get the hell outta there to get a better gun or some friends, otherwise you just gave the enemy a free kill. The enemy can’t really chase you down since you can likely outrun them since there is a 3/21 odds that they are equipped with Sprint.

Halo 4 came around and returned with armor abilites… but chose to make Sprinting a default built in action you could perform at any time.
AND
The loadouts you could make in Halo 4 meant that a lot of players were running the Mobility perk that allowed players to sprint indefinitely.
So now EVERYONE can sprint AND have a secondary ability that they could trigger.
Everyone can get to the objectives at about the same time.
Everyone could make a rush-dash for the good weapons.

You just spawned in and are attempting to retreat from a group of enemies you spawned nearby? Too bad, you try to run to your team, they will run too. And to make it worse, if you weren’t running the Mobility perk and they were; at least one of the guys chasing you down can outrun you and either get close enough for a back-smack or an easy kill.
So now when you spawned in Halo 4 and were unfortunate enough to spawn near the enemy, you had to fight a 2-or-3-on-1 fight, perhaps even a 4-on-1 if the RNG hated you enough. Which typically results in you either getting one or no kills, and the enemy team is one point closer to victory.

Then Halo 5 came around.
Everyone can sprint indefinitely.
You can now perform a melee-slam when you reach terminal sprint velocity, so a successful impact of said slam will instantly take out the shields of your opponent. With your default sidearm, you can instantly pop a shot into their exposed head for a quick kill in less than a second.

And as an attempt to provide a “balancing counter-point” to everyone infinitely sprinting around, they made it so if you are sprinting; your shields-&-health wouldn’t recharge.
So lets take that scenario again of when you respawn and happen to be nearby a group of enemies that are outnumbering you 3-to-1.
You start running while they shoot at you. They landed a few hits so your shields are now at 1/3 capacity. Everyone has infinite sprint so you are being chased down as you are trying to get to your friendlies to even the odds… only since you are unable to recharge shields-&-health while sprinting; as soon as you regroup with your buddies, you are a priority target for an easy kill since you are still at 1/3 shield strength EVEN THOUGH you weren’t hit once during that entire chase.
Real fun to limit our tactics like that huh?

343 Industries viewed sprinting only as a means of advancing and decided to make it available for all. Because they never considered the full scope of tactics when designing how it should be done, it was annoying and unfun in Halo 4 and somewhat tolerable in Halo 5 thanks to how they introduced a smooth mobility system for this sprinting mechanic to work with; but yet it was still annoying to deal with in plenty of scenarios.

Halo Infinite’s sprint is actually something a bit more tolerable, as it only increases your speed by 10% instead of 25%. Thus the maps still feel decently sized and there is not just endless chaos in most matches because people keep respawning and meeting each other at the power weapons spawns every five seconds. It also means that you aren’t outpacing your other teammates by too much, so you still arrive earlier to start securing an objective, and your teammates arrive just behind you for support.
And shields recharge while sprinting, so tactical retreat is a viable option once again.

3 Likes
70

That’s not a petty counter. That’s my point. Walking is so slow. With sprint, you can slide to your destination faster.

71

Not every game should be designed to be for everyone. If not having sprint is that much of a deal breaker for you then Halo is not the game for you.

Halo at it’s core is a sandbox shooter. 343 took the wrong path trying to emphasize the shooter elements rather than the sandbox and it’s why they keep failing.

Halo CE-3 isn’t slow, you’re just conditioned to expect the wrong things out of a Halo title.

2 Likes
72

Lol do you see the irony here. You’ve perfectly described DOOM or Quake and are arguing that Halo needs to be more like them because it is too much like Battlefield. Sprint is a preference plain and simple. There is no Halo “is this game because it has no sprint”

73

The problem is that Halo is different for different people.

Over 20 years it has changed a lot (notice I avoided using the term ‘evolved’).

And I guess H3 and H5 are the most opposing forms of Halo.

But all these arguments for and against rest on the fact that some aspect of game play moves you closer to, or further away, from ‘your’ Halo. The validity of your argument only works with respect to someone who holds the same Halo values as yourself.

Personally I think 343 have done a great job of finding the middle ground. But there will always be those on both sides who are too polarised in their passion to be happy.

1 Like
74

It really isn’t.
Pro-sprinters have done excellent jobs before at explaining anti-sprinters’ point of view extremely well without taking the “just plain bad at the game” approach.

The post is basically a thinly veiled skill flame, and whatever point the author tried to convey with their “Missed the point” reactions on any post debating it, is then extremely poorly made. It’s borderline trolling then to not attempt to even explain it.

1 Like
75

Excuse me? You have no power or authority to make that statement.

Conditioned? Okay we’re done talking here.

76

Yeah but then you have posts like this:

I’d want to snap at a person, too. People like to be smart -Yoink!- here. I mean I’m certainly no choir boy, but the internet sometimes isn’t a place we’re people respect one’s opinion.

77

Sandbox Arena Shooter.

2 Likes
78

What the hell is this? There’s a decade of criticisms regarding sprint’s effect on the gameplay and pace of Halo, and this is your contribution? “Get good”?

1 Like
79

There is a dedicated sprint thread