Site Poll 72: Do you want to get rid of fluid movement?

[Ranger Intel]

 

 

Hi everyone, Spartan here with site poll #72.

 

 

Last week we talked about what you whether you wanted to see Fireteam Osiris in Halo 6 or not. The consensus appeared to be that they should be involved, but with set conditions such as less screen-time or more character development. Some great suggestions were made. Click here to view the last poll, #71.

 

 

 

Do you want to get rid of fluid movement?

 

 

A sorta hot topic in the Halo community is whether player fluidity should be increased or decreased. Something I remember noticing after Halo 4 dropped was the pace of multiplayer games. Things were quicker and you were in a much more dynamic atmosphere compared to prior games. Many people, however, believe that fluid movement should be removed from future Halo games.

 

When I say 'fluid movement', I'm referring to features such as sprint and clamber. Halo 4 made sprint permanent, and Halo 5 introduced many more permanent abilities. Of course in lore, Spartans don't actually just float in the air before deciding where to ground-pound like in H5 multiplayer, but instead it's a quicker action as seen in the Osiris trailer for Halo 5. These things make sense, because technology is far superior in the late 2550s and you are in GEN2 armour. When it comes to the gameplay though, not everything reflects lore, so removing these features wouldn't be a big deal. Many claim that this isn't real Halo, unlike Halos CE, 2 and 3 where there was limited Spartan mobility. They want to void these new abilities.

 

Bungie experimented with armour abilities, one being sprint, in Halo: Reach. This let 343 decide what to do in Halo 4, and I guess you can say they were also experimenting by making it the first game to feature permanent sprint. They then repeated this with Halo 5 and added more fluid movement. Some love it, others not so much. I personally believe they will keep it because of the impact it has on multiplayer. Halo has been focussed a lot on competitive gameplay recently, and this is a way of flexing what the games allow players to do by showing more complex programming. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but Halo's return to competitive play with the World Championship is most likely a scheme by Microsoft for more money, and they won't wanna drop it anytime soon.

 

Are you for or against fluid movement?

 

 

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts,

Spartan out.    

[Spartan II S-125]

I think we should keep thees Fluid movements like sprint and ground pounding because it basically has its own game mode in action sack on halo 5 and i would like to still see and use it in halo 6 so i vote they keep it in halo 6 -S-173 out

[RedStarRocket91]

Another really great question!

I may well be in the minority here, but I'm actually of the opinion that the current fluid movement system doesn't actually go far enough. For the past few years I've been playing a lot of Warframe, which has one of the fastest, most fluid movement systems I've ever experienced. The total freedom of movement it offers is just incredible, and so I'm in the odd position that when I go back to Halo 5, it actually feels outright clunky by comparison. Even sprinting at full speed feels really slow, like the game is only trying to give you the illusion of speed rather than actually letting you go fast. I think a lot of that's probably down to map design, but in combination with accurate, hitscan weapons and how painfully slow the base movement speed is, to me Halo 5 just feels like the closest it's ever been to a cover shooter, as players just can't move fast enough to cover ground in the open.

 

Just to stress, I don't necessarily want players to move faster - that brings its own advantages and disadvantages. But I'd like for the movement system to focus a bit more on, well, movement, rather than gimmicks. Take clambering, for example. It's nice and all but it's not particularly fast to perform, and completely kills your momentum - if you're sprinting at full speed, for example, you end up back at normal walking pace on completion. Instead, if you're sprinting just let it drop you into a slide, so if you want you can immediately stand back up and continue with no loss of pace.

 

Speaking of the slide - it's damn cool, but it doesn't really have any practical use. Part of this is because the friction slows you far too quickly - instead, give players a period of one second or so after entering slide before they start losing speed, and have it take longer before they come to a stop. That makes it a bit more fun to use, and a bit less impractical, but we can still do more. Tie the rate of deceleration to the angle of the ground beneath the player, so that if you start sliding down a slope, you actually start going faster. And that's just the base mechanic - what would improve it even more is adding proper crouch ducts to maps, so that sliding has a real, practical use, allowing players to keep the pace up when going under low barriers rather than completely sacrificing their momentum.

 

And of course, there's the mid-air stabilisation thrusters. Right now, they're hopelessly impractical, since if you want actual manual control over them the button combination to activate them is incredibly clunky, and if you leave it on automatic they have a tendency to activate when you don't want them. Quite why they aren't just mapped to the jump key is beyond me. They also have the same issue as slide as, while it looks pretty cool, it's generally quite impractical, and it also completely kills your momentum. So, I'd propose a couple of changes - first, let them be activated at any time, just by holding the jump button. Next, let them have no effect on momentum, so they they feel like a natural, smooth part of the movement system. And thirdly, treat them more like the slide, so that for the first second of use the player doesn't lose any height, succumbing to the normal effects of gravity over the next second after that.

 

Lastly, I'd like to un-nerf Sprint. Not being able to regenerate your shields or health while sprinting is already enough of a punishment without making the control scheme unreliable as well. As is, it just feels incredibly awkward when you try to start sprinting while under attack and the game just stops the controls from responding. We don't inhibit a player's ability to jump when they're under attack, so there's no reason to do it for sprint, and right now it's incredibly inconsistent since it affects you differently depending on whether you're sprinting before or after you come under fire.

 

I know a lot of people enjoy the movement in the older Halos, and that's fine. but there's no denying at this point that it feels very dated, and very slow. Improving the overall fluidity of the movement system would open up new combat tactics and so increase the skill gap, turn what are currently gimmicks into a real part of the core gameplay, eliminate some of the 'clunkiness' of combat, and most importantly, make moving around maps feel more fun.

 

[Mr Kittens and Gibberish]

Another really great question!

 

I may well be in the minority here, but I'm actually of the opinion that the current fluid movement system doesn't actually go far enough. For the past few years I've been playing a lot of Warframe, which has one of the fastest, most fluid movement systems I've ever experienced. The total freedom of movement it offers is just incredible, and so I'm in the odd position that when I go back to Halo 5, it actually feels outright clunky by comparison. Even sprinting at full speed feels really slow, like the game is only trying to give you the illusion of speed rather than actually letting you go fast. I think a lot of that's probably down to map design, but in combination with accurate, hitscan weapons and how painfully slow the base movement speed is, to me Halo 5 just feels like the closest it's ever been to a cover shooter, as players just can't move fast enough to cover ground in the open.

 

Just to stress, I don't necessarily want players to move faster - that brings its own advantages and disadvantages. But I'd like for the movement system to focus a bit more on, well, movement, rather than gimmicks. Take clambering, for example. It's nice and all but it's not particularly fast to perform, and completely kills your momentum - if you're sprinting at full speed, for example, you end up back at normal walking pace on completion. Instead, if you're sprinting just let it drop you into a slide, so if you want you can immediately stand back up and continue with no loss of pace.

 

Speaking of the slide - it's damn cool, but it doesn't really have any practical use. Part of this is because the friction slows you far too quickly - instead, give players a period of one second or so after entering slide before they start losing speed, and have it take longer before they come to a stop. That makes it a bit more fun to use, and a bit less impractical, but we can still do more. Tie the rate of deceleration to the angle of the ground beneath the player, so that if you start sliding down a slope, you actually start going faster. And that's just the base mechanic - what would improve it even more is adding proper crouch ducts to maps, so that sliding has a real, practical use, allowing players to keep the pace up when going under low barriers rather than completely sacrificing their momentum.

 

And of course, there's the mid-air stabilisation thrusters. Right now, they're hopelessly impractical, since if you want actual manual control over them the button combination to activate them is incredibly clunky, and if you leave it on automatic they have a tendency to activate when you don't want them. Quite why they aren't just mapped to the jump key is beyond me. They also have the same issue as slide as, while it looks pretty cool, it's generally quite impractical, and it also completely kills your momentum. So, I'd propose a couple of changes - first, let them be activated at any time, just by holding the jump button. Next, let them have no effect on momentum, so they they feel like a natural, smooth part of the movement system. And thirdly, treat them more like the slide, so that for the first second of use the player doesn't lose any height, succumbing to the normal effects of gravity over the next second after that.

 

Lastly, I'd like to un-nerf Sprint. Not being able to regenerate your shields or health while sprinting is already enough of a punishment without making the control scheme unreliable as well. As is, it just feels incredibly awkward when you try to start sprinting while under attack and the game just stops the controls from responding. We don't inhibit a player's ability to jump when they're under attack, so there's no reason to do it for sprint, and right now it's incredibly inconsistent since it affects you differently depending on whether you're sprinting before or after you come under fire.

 

I know a lot of people enjoy the movement in the older Halos, and that's fine. but there's no denying at this point that it feels very dated, and very slow. Improving the overall fluidity of the movement system would open up new combat tactics and so increase the skill gap, turn what are currently gimmicks into a real part of the core gameplay, eliminate some of the 'clunkiness' of combat, and most importantly, make moving around maps feel more fun.

 

Took the words right out of my mouth. lol