A27 Tawpgun said:
At a cost? Ok well here's our disagreement.
It opens up bullshit new routes that break all intended player paths and make getting from point A to point B a straight line opposed to a designed path for the combat to flow... and the cost and risks associated with it are minimal. It acts as a super jump that is really loud. That is NOT enough, not for me, and not for a higher level of play, to balance out how ridiculously easy it is to move around the map with.
The risk: Higher visibility, forgoing a more combat-oriented armor ability, briefly distancing self from ground cover in order to access it, being less useful on primarily horizontal terrain, and severely exposing yourself to air vehicles and the sniper rifle. It's easy to traverse with, but on a decent map the available counters are as hard as they get.
The cost: The jetpack "hopping" is highly dependent on map geometry. The best spaces tend to force Jetpack users to sidetrack or to exhaust the ability over and over again to get to a desirable portion of the map, which breaks up what you describe as "getting from point A to point B [in] a straight line". Such pathing introduces a flow just as genuine as the one encountered solely on foot, and is only as broken as the individual map. This doesn't singularly apply to Halo either, there are other examples of how "bullshit new routes" can form a balanced and integral part of gameplay, with both risk and cost in play.