Why does Sprint need to go?

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

If there’s one thing that pisses me off about sprint in Halo 4 its the people that always run away whenever they’re about to die making me have to chase them down. On top of that 343 just added a new tactical package that allows you to keep your speed while sprinting when you’re being shot at facepalm

But recently I’ve seen some threads saying that sprint needs to go. IMO I think that its mandatory now that fps games have sprint. Sprint in Halo Reach worked fine and was very well balanced IMO. For example in Reach if wanted fast mobility(Sprint) then you had to sacrifice invulnerability(Armor lock). Don’t get me wrong Armor Lock was extremely OP but that’s besides the point.

Do you guys think Sprint needs to go or does it need to stay? And why?

2

Sprint in Reach was an armor ability, so the majority of players in any game would not be using it. I would like to see it at least revert to an armor ability (i’m assuming armor abilities are here to stay, although I would prefer they be on map).

When I look at my favorite maps in the series, they are all maps that simply could not and would not be designed in a game that is optimized assuming everyone has sprint.

Of course its the combination of instant respawn AND sprint that can really cause problems.

3

Some like sprint

Some hate sprint

Some like armor abilities

Some hate armor abilities

OBVIOUS FIX:
Keep sprint and armor abilities, but make classic playlists with no sprinting and no armor abilities

Though load outs, those need to me whipped out of halo boom boom

4

Sprint shouldn’t be in halo unless it is on a BTB map.

5

> Sprint shouldn’t be in halo unless it is on a BTB map.

Not even for Campaign or Spartan Ops/Firefight?

6

> If theres one thing that pisses me off about sprint in Halo 4 its the people that always run away whenever they’re about to die making me have to chase them down. On top of that 343 just added a new tactical package that allows you to keep your speed while sprinting when you’re being shot at facepalm
>
> But recently I’ve seen some threads saying that sprint needs to go. <mark>IMO I think that its mandatory now that fps games have sprint.</mark> Sprint in Halo Reach worked fine and was very well balanced.
>
> Do you guys think Sprint needs to go or does it need to stay? And why?

That type of thinking is the enemy of creativity and innovation.

Rather than thinking about how a lack of sprint actually helped to define Halo’s unique gameplay (which once worked). you’re thinking that Halo needs sprint, simply because it’s normal for games to have sprint these days.

Well I don’t want normal… I want Halo.

7

the Reason why it needs to go is because the majority of the community hates it. I could care less if it stays or goes.

8

> the Reason why it needs to go is because the majority of the community hates it. I could care less if it stays or goes.

Because the community is upset and hates it, that’s hardly a reason to justify its removal.

While I could explain for the thousandth time in excruciating detail why it doesn’t work well in Halo outside of Customs, Campaign, and certain gametypes I think I’ll pass.

9

But sprint did not work in Reach. That’s why ZBNS was so popular. I mean, a coin flip is “balanced”, CoD is “balanced”, sprint and random ordinance and a loadout shotgun as a secondary weapon are “balanced”, but it doesn’t mean it takes skill.

They even said at the GDC 2013 conference that their goal was to make Halo more accessible and to do away with a steep learning curve. To argue against sprint not taking skill is to argue against the developers themselves.

I don’t think people really care if it stays in social playlists (even though it kind of messes with vehicular maps), so I’d settle for only having ranked without sprint. You could argue that maps designed without sprint in mind wouldn’t work in a social game with sprint enabled, but hey, it’s social, so does it matter?

Such a ranked/social division would be adequate for everyone. Anyone who would argue that Halo needs to be less divided needs to take a look at the forums. It’s already divided.

10

I’m kind of baffled as to why someone would want sprint as an armor ability. It was not balanced that way at all. The person who had sprint would have a serious speed advantage over someone else who didn’t have it. On top of that, there was no slow down mechanic, so running away was worse. At least halo 4 has it for everybody, technically putting everyone at the same level in that sense.

That said, I don’t want sprint in halo again. It forces maps to be larger for a temporary ability. And since everyone has it, everyone can run away now at any time, so even though it evens thing out a bit, its s till just as bad as before. Before you mention the slow down mechanic, it hardly reduces the problem of sprint causing running away.

Sprint is not balanced in a halo game and was never needed. If 343 does decide to keep it though they should let us keep our guns up while sprinting, and we should also be able to sprint for ever. This should only be in customs though and never multiplayer.

11

I personally don’t have any problems with sprint. I think sprint by now is here to stay and if they did take it out or make it an armor ability again, I think there would be massive revolt for it.

12

> I personally don’t have any problems with sprint. I think sprint by now is here to stay and if they did take it out or make it an armor ability again, I think there would be massive revolt for it.

I wouldn’t say massive, halos population for multiplayer now is dwarfed by halo 3, which had no sprint. Id say a lot more players would be fine without it. There would definitely be backlash, but not as loud as the celebration.

13

> I’m kind of baffled as to why someone would want sprint as an armor ability. It was not balanced that way at all. The person who had sprint would have a serious speed advantage over someone else who didn’t have it. On top of that, there was no slow down mechanic, so running away was worse. At least halo 4 has it for everybody, technically putting everyone at the same level in that sense.
>
> That said, I don’t want sprint in halo again. It forces maps to be larger for a temporary ability.

Think about it. The Reach maps didn’t suffer from map expansion. In fact the forge maps and base maps for team slayer (just using a moderate sized game time as an example) very much resembled previous installments in terms of both size and design. Because sprint wasn’t given to everyone, they didn’t have to expand the maps and shift geometry to account for it.

Yeah, sprint gave you a speed advantage. And jet pack gave you map breaking advantage. Armor lock gave you an advantage by breaking two corners of the triangle. You get the idea. Yeah, giving sprint to everyone leveled the playing field in that sense, but then you just select another armor ability to create a different disparity.

And as far as the armor ability not having slow down… that is a silly argument against having it as an armor ability in Halo 5 when you can simply <mark>add slow down to the armor ability</mark>

So the argument for sprint as an armor ability is that it would allow the map design to revert to the style that resulted in gems like Turf, Sanctuary, Shutout, Guardian, the Pit, and even Countdown (had to throw Reach a bone. Despite the disdain people had for its maps at the time, I suspect most people would agree it was dramatically more interesting than Halo 4).

All this being said, I’m in favor of making all the armor abilities (sprint included) limited use equipment that has to be placed on map just like the grav lift or overshield.

> They even said at the GDC 2013 conference that their goal was to make Halo more accessible and to do away with a steep learning curve. To argue against sprint not taking skill is to argue against the developers themselves.

I would challenge you to find somewhere they said that sprint reduces skill. I can’t imagine they stated that logic with respects to a specific mechanic aside from the ordinance system, which certainly reduces the learning curve since you no longer have to memorize map spawns and timers to be competitive.

Your statement seems to imply that you think skill requirement necessitates a steep learning curve which is not true at all. Learning the game can be made very accessible without reducing the skill gap. Knowing when/where the rocket launcher spawns is knowledge; managing that knowledge is skill. All that being said, I hate the ordinance system and want on map spawns back. I would like in game spawn maps that do not provide real time information implemented to eliminate the knowledge gap without eliminating the skill gap.

14

> > I’m kind of baffled as to why someone would want sprint as an armor ability. It was not balanced that way at all. The person who had sprint would have a serious speed advantage over someone else who didn’t have it. On top of that, there was no slow down mechanic, so running away was worse. At least halo 4 has it for everybody, technically putting everyone at the same level in that sense.
> >
> > That said, I don’t want sprint in halo again. It forces maps to be larger for a temporary ability.
>
> Think about it. The Reach maps didn’t suffer from map expansion. In fact the forge maps and base maps for team slayer (just using a moderate sized game time as an example) very much resembled previous installments in terms of both size and design. Because sprint wasn’t given to everyone, they didn’t have to expand the maps and shift geometry to account for it.
>
> Yeah, sprint gave you a speed advantage. And jet pack gave you map breaking advantage. Armor lock gave you an advantage by breaking two corners of the triangle. You get the idea. Yeah, giving sprint to everyone leveled the playing field in that sense, but then you just select another armor ability to create a different disparity.
>
> And as far as the armor ability not having slow down… that is a silly argument against having it as an armor ability in Halo 5 when you can simply <mark>add slow down to the armor ability</mark>
>
> So the argument for sprint as an armor ability is that it would allow the map design to revert to the style that resulted in gems like Turf, Sanctuary, Shutout, Guardian, the Pit, and even Countdown (had to throw Reach a bone. Despite the disdain people had for its maps at the time, I suspect most people would agree it was dramatically more interesting than Halo 4).
>
> All this being said, I’m in favor of making all the armor abilities (sprint included) limited use equipment that has to be placed on map just like the grav lift or overshield.
>
>
> > They even said at the GDC 2013 conference that their goal was to make Halo more accessible and to do away with a steep learning curve. To argue against sprint not taking skill is to argue against the developers themselves.
>
> I would challenge you to find somewhere they said that sprint reduces skill. I can’t imagine they stated that logic with respects to a specific mechanic aside from the ordinance system, which certainly reduces the learning curve since you no longer have to memorize map spawns and timers to be competitive.
>
> Your statement seems to imply that you think skill requirement necessitates a steep learning curve which is not true at all. Learning the game can be made very accessible without reducing the skill gap. Knowing when/where the rocket launcher spawns is knowledge; managing that knowledge is skill. All that being said, I hate the ordinance system and want on map spawns back. I would like in game spawn maps that do not provide real time information implemented to eliminate the knowledge gap without eliminating the skill gap.

They did make the maps bigger, no map in reach was as
Small as guardian or midship. Also your comparison of it to other armor abilities doesn’t help you. I have sprint in reach, and I can run away from someone without it, like armor lock for instance. The only other armor abilities that come close to it are evade and jet pack, and both of those were imbalanced anyway, so reach came down to imbalance vs imbalance. Not a winning formula. It does not add skill or depth to the game so it makes it shallow and boring. And you argument for putting slow down on an armor ability in halo 5 is irrelevant to the fact that it did not have it in reach, poking a hole in your argument that its balanced. I know you we’re talking about halo 5 when you made that argument by the way, I’m just saying.

15

> They did make the maps bigger, no map in reach was as
> Small as guardian or midship. Also your comparison of it to other armor abilities doesn’t help you. I have sprint in reach, and I can run away from someone without it, like armor lock for instance. The only other armor abilities that come close to it are evade and jet pack, and both of those were imbalanced anyway, so reach came down to imbalance vs imbalance. Not a winning formula. It does not add skill or depth to the game so it makes it shallow and boring. And you argument for putting slow down on an armor ability in halo 5 is irrelevant to the fact that it did not have it in reach, poking a hole in your argument that its balanced. I know you we’re talking about halo 5 when you made that argument by the way, I’m just saying.

There were multiple very reasonably sized arena style forge maps that were successfully implemented into Reach, and Zealot was also very reasonably sized. Countdown was essentially a geometric remake of Construct from Halo 3. Even Powerhouse and Sword Base, which were fairly expansive maps in terms of square footage, funneled action into narrower play areas and smallish rooms that simply don’t exist in Halo 4.

And yes. Imbalance vs imbalance is the core of implementing armor abilities. Making sprint default does not change that. It just changes what the imbalance is. Instead of having speed compared to someone else’s invulnerability, you can see through walls compared to someone else being able to fly over your grenades and make your power weapons worthless.

I’m not sure how you can claim that the Halo 4 armor abilities are more balanced than sprint was with promethean vision, jet pack still being in the game (admittedly this one is better balanced now), and invisibility now allowing you to still use your radar while it is activated.

And it not having slow down in Reach has nothing to do with an argument that sprint would work better as an armor ability in Halo 5… which you actually acknowledged after bringing it up so I’m not sure what the point was.

And just let me reiterate that I also want armor abilities to be on map, making the game fundamentally equal instead of picking and choosing what abilities constitute acceptable inequality.

16

I’d rather see it reworked than removed, as a campaign player I’ve always wanted it trekking around Assault on the Control Room, Gravemind, The Ark, etc. gets boring

17

> I’d rather see it reworked than removed, as a campaign player I’ve always wanted it trekking around Assault on the Control Room, Gravemind, The Ark, etc. gets boring

Keep in mind that even if they were to outright remove it from multiplayer for balance reasons (unlikely), that would mean absolutely nothing regarding if they would choose to keep it in campaign where its use is at your discretion and has no impact on how the game plays for other players.

18

> > They did make the maps bigger, no map in reach was as
> > Small as guardian or midship. Also your comparison of it to other armor abilities doesn’t help you. I have sprint in reach, and I can run away from someone without it, like armor lock for instance. The only other armor abilities that come close to it are evade and jet pack, and both of those were imbalanced anyway, so reach came down to imbalance vs imbalance. Not a winning formula. It does not add skill or depth to the game so it makes it shallow and boring. And you argument for putting slow down on an armor ability in halo 5 is irrelevant to the fact that it did not have it in reach, poking a hole in your argument that its balanced. I know you we’re talking about halo 5 when you made that argument by the way, I’m just saying.
>
> There were multiple very reasonably sized arena style forge maps that were successfully implemented into Reach, and Zealot was also very reasonably sized. Countdown was essentially a geometric remake of Construct from Halo 3. Even Powerhouse and Sword Base, which were fairly expansive maps in terms of square footage, funneled action into narrower play areas and smallish rooms that simply don’t exist in Halo 4.
>
> And yes. Imbalance vs imbalance is the core of implementing armor abilities. Making sprint default does not change that. It just changes what the imbalance is. Instead of having speed compared to someone else’s invulnerability, you can see through walls compared to someone else being able to fly over your grenades and make your power weapons worthless.
>
> I’m not sure how you can claim that the Halo 4 armor abilities are more balanced than sprint was with promethean vision, jet pack still being in the game (admittedly this one is better balanced now), and invisibility now allowing you to still use your radar while it is activated.
>
> And it not having slow down in Reach has nothing to do with an argument that sprint would work better as an armor ability in Halo 5… which you actually acknowledged after bringing it up so I’m not sure what the point was.
>
> And just let me reiterate that I also want armor abilities to be on map, making the game fundamentally equal instead of picking and choosing what abilities constitute acceptable inequality.

Claiming that halo reachs maps were reasonably sized does not mean that they were as small as previous maps. And I’m pretty sure abandon, haven, vertigo, landfall, skyline, all fit the same criteria as you described reaches maps having. I can also claim that halo 4s armor abilities are more balanced because of regen, hologram, thruster,hard light shield and sentry turret, don’t hurt gameplay. The 3 you mentioned do, which also existed in reach. Reach also had evade, a useless hologram because it flickered constantly and a shield that covered every side of you and healed you. So yeah halo 4 has better armor abilities. Also I remember the devs saying the core reason for implementing armor abilities, was strategy. Not imbalance. How do I adapt with strategy to a sprint armor ability without having to choose another one that counters it? And what I meant by the no slow down thing was that you saying to put it in halo 5 does not help your argument that halo reach has a better balanced sprint, like you stated in your first post. Once again just saying.

19

> And what I meant by the no slow down thing was that you saying to put it in halo 5 does not help your argument that halo reach has a better balanced sprint, like you stated in your first post. Once again just saying.

My argument was that sprint works better as an armor ability, not that Halo Reach sprint works better as an armor ability than Halo 5 sprint would work as an armor ability.

So tell me, how do you strategize around someone canceling out your melee, knocking out your shields, and killing you with a melee all before you can react to the knowledge that they have armor lock equipped which you had no way of knowing until they used it?

And no, Reach did not let you see through walls. The franchise hadn’t quite jumped the shark at that point.

20

Sprint needs to change or gtf.
Better yet Halo needs to change or -Yoink-…