Campaign and Big Team Battle are what I'm talking about mostly here. There is no problem at all with being able to sprint in Campaign which is an enormous chunk of what Halo has to offer. Sprint does nothing but enrich the Campaign experience.
Now listen, I get where you're coming from, I really do. But truth be told, I couldn't disagree more.
Campaign is the
last place where I want to have sprint interfere with the gameplay.
Remember those arguments people make about elongated maps and breaking flow of combat? They apply to campaign even more.
Contrary to multiplayer, Campaign does not have anything even remotely comparable to "equal starts". In fact, most enemies are more powerful than the player
by design. Especially when playing on higher difficulties, you already are at a huge disadvantage compared to the enemy AI in terms of numbers, spacial awareness and aiming abilities. The last thing the player needs is an ability that
removes his or her offensive capabilities. Yes, you're faster and technically could escape the enemies easier, but scaling of maps is happening in singleplayer just as well as in multiplayer, so you're crossing vast but empty spaces without cover, negating all benefits of sprint. Also, enemy AI is always designed with peak player abilities in mind, which is why Elites in Reach were able to run just as fast as the player while still retaining the ability to shoot. I don't even want to get started about Teleporter-Knights in 4.
Another thing that sprint "gave us" was increasingly worse level design. Developers and mapmakers need to account for sprint when they're building boundaries of the levels. So most if not all maps are now encapsuled by enormous pits, gigantic walls or - if they're lazy - softkill zones. Now this is already boring as heck, but it also completely diminishes the exploration aspect of Halo, which is ironic, because this seems to be the intention behind larger sized maps and increased player speed. It also creates sever problems with level skips, something that speedrunners and LASO/Mythic players use on a daily basis. Granted, these things are not intended and developers are probably glad that we can no longer get out of bounds that easily, but then again, Halo has had a history with easter eggs being hidden in hard to access parts of the maps, so this is another "core element of traditional Halo" that sprint interferes with, directly or indirectly.
I could really go on a rant here, but I think I made my point clear enough. Also, I'm at work and people start staring...
I want to feel like a spartan.
Me too.
So why the flying f*** can't I shoot while running and have to use the antiquated iron sights instead of the highly sophisticated and technologically superior targeting mechanism that's already pre-built into my armor?