Now I know that "pinslop" is already a heavily debated subject in the community. With myself personally having no qualms over the current ecosystem of Rex and Allo, and even appreciating how pouncing and pinning allows these animals to function as ambush predators. Even acknowledging that the mechanics is a bit too non-interactive, with more being needed that you can do while pinned.
I dismissed the fear that pinning and pouncing in general was going to become more of a staple, that certainly they wouldn't give most of the cast what once made Omniraptor unique. However, after the most recent dev blog shed light on both Austroraptor and Oviraptor, I'm disheartened to find these fears justified.
All of the community complaints about the system are generally correct; it's uninspired, uninteractive, band-aid applied to carnivores to gap close any skill that the would be predator would have with it's prey, preventing cases where a novice may be bested by a considerably smaller expert. I saw this as a necessary evil so that Rexes and Allos projected a level of danger no matter how novice a player is behind the wheel. But now to also give it to even more playables that are smaller? I fear I've given this team too much credit.
Austroraptor I can see utilizing a pounce & pin, but not at the strength that Omniraptor does it. But imagining such a lanky creature pouncing and latching onto another animal is just silly to me. And due to it's speed over omniraptor, it's just going to create an even more oppressive environment for freshspawns. For Oviraptor, we haven't had any confirmation that it's going to be pouncer, only a contextless video of an Omniraptor wearing Oviraptor's skin. But if that was to inform the community what to expect, I'm a bit lose for words.
The latch grapple mechanic has also been used on dinosaurs intended to be pack hunters, while I always had the interpretation that both of these playables was going to be more solitary. It's going to be sad seeing packs of Austros and Ovis pinning stuff, when they should be making these smaller playables have identity to separate them from the larger cast. One of Isle's strong suits is the combat, why would they veer away from it?