About running..
There are several problems involved with the movement mechanics that involve both realism, teamplay, and what kind of gameplay it promotes, and no, bigger maps won't just solve thouse issues (even on a huge map, you would still likely have indoor areas where the problems would persist). let's look at some of them:
1) Lack of momentum.
In HoS we accellerate and decellerate allmost instantly from a standstill to an all out sprint, and worse, changing direction is also instant, there is no (or atleast so little as to be pointless) momentum to overcome. This is not realistic, in real life we have to deal with the laws of acceleration, real momentum, and our own abillities to move whilst staying in balance (the need to decellerate before major direction changes, or we'll faceplant), humans cannot move the way avatars do in HoS.
It is also bad for tactical gameplay, when people can move this rapidly and unpredictably with ease, it allows for lone-wolf/Rambo style run and gun gameplay.
2) Surface type.
HoS treats every game surface the same, namely as perfectly level and clear concrete, a surface that would be easy to run on. This is only realistic if the ground you are on happens to be perfectly level and clear, but the game features many other surfaces, including snow, mud, rubble, stairs and various uphill and downhill areas, thease would all affect how fast you could move in real life, and how much "stamina" it takes to move on them (walking in sand or snow is harder work than dry ground or concrete).
I belive it would be difficult to code this, but regardless, the game's realism would be inproved if such things were taken into considderation.
3) Overall speed.
This is technically realistic in HoS, aside from the momentum and surface type issues mention above.
However, it does not promote tactical gameplay, between our limited FOV, online latency issues and the need to lead targets extra for ping, the faster we move, the more the gamplay favours the lone Rambo's who can exploit the lapses in our FOV and the latency to get a drop on people, and just as quickly run away if things go sour for them.
It's also bad for teamplay, the faster we move the quicker we get sepperated, the quicker we lose an overview of where people are and where we might be needed.
I am convinced that lowering the movement speed would improve gameplay, make it flow more realistic and team freindly.
4) Stamina.
Again it is technically realistic that we can sprint for a good while, but how it is used, the gameplay it fosters, is anything but.
If you look at war photage, you will notice that for damn near 90% of it you see soldiers moving at jogging speeds at best, not at sprinting speeds, and there is a very good reason for that: Combat is extremely hard physical work, causing soldiers to conserve their energy any chance they get, it's basic biology, it's how we are designed and we do it naturally and without thinking.
But that is not how we play video games, if you give us sprinting, we'll use it to fast-travel past the boring and get to the action, we'll sprint all the friggen time and we will sprint everywhere we go, constantly, and that is precisely why Tactical shooters, as a rule, give you less Stamina than what might be considdered "realistic", it is to foster more realistic USE of our stamina, to make us conserve it for when we need it (like when a grenade lands near us, or we have to cross a hostile street).
Couple this with low stamina in HoS having little effect on us, along with the overall speed we have and instant decelleration to a fiering stance, and you get blitz-speed gameplay that moves along at a break-neck tempo, it may be slower than CoD, but it's certainly not reprisentative of how humans move in a combat zone.
And before any of you insufferable gits say "durr, but Ost didn't have some of thouse things either hurr", let me preempt you and say "no **** Sherlock, but this is supposed to be sequal, and i for one would like for it to become better than the origional".
Yes, so there you have it, my thoughts on the movement mechanics.
