Proposal: Enhancing Dungeon Engagement Through Continuous Combat and Assault Run Segments

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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Proposal: Enhancing Dungeon Engagement Through Continuous Combat and Assault Run Segments

Overview

World of Warcraft dungeons are a beloved staple of the game, but the traditional model of “pull → rest → repeat” has grown predictable. While some encounters offer memorable mechanics, trash mobs often lack depth and replay value, making many dungeons feel more like chores than challenges—especially on repeat runs.

This proposal outlines a set of design enhancements aimed at turning dungeons into high-adrenaline, fluid experiences, driven by continuous combat flow and tactically intense “assault run” segments.

Design Goals

  • Eliminate excessive downtime between pulls
  • Encourage strategic momentum and party synergy
  • Introduce rewarding risk-reward gameplay
  • Enhance immersion by reducing artificial pacing

Key Features & Systems

:crossed_swords: 1. Momentum Buff

  • Players gain a stacking combat bonus (damage/healing/movement speed) while continuously fighting.
  • Buff drops if party is out of combat for more than 5 seconds.
  • Encourages aggressive pacing and fewer breaks.

:link: 2. Linked Pulls

  • Certain trash packs are connected and will auto-chain into the next if pulled within a brief window.
  • Feels like clearing waves rather than isolated groups.
  • Strategic use of crowd control and AoE becomes essential.

:candle: 3. Environmental Pressure (Timed Curse or Torch Mechanic)

  • A dungeon-wide debuff or magical torch slowly weakens players if they idle.
  • Rewards teams that push forward instead of camping between pulls.

:brain: 4. Intelligent Trash Mechanics

  • Trash mobs gain unique mechanics that require awareness and group coordination:
    • Kill order priority
    • Area denial or line-of-sight interactions
    • Buff/debuff synergy
  • Raises the bar from filler to tactical challenge.

:moneybag: 5. Combat Combo Meter

  • Defeating mobs without breaking combat builds a combo meter.
  • Higher combo = increased loot quantity, gold bonus, or vanity rewards.
  • Resets on party wipe or extended downtime.

:zap: 6. Seamless Encounter Transitions

  • Some bosses engage immediately after trash is cleared, or join combat while trash is still active.
  • Keeps pressure on the group, especially in narrative-critical moments.
  • Examples: Boss yelling during the final pull, or appearing from behind during a mini-boss fight.

Assault Run Segments: Pacing Peaks Within the Dungeon

Rather than making entire dungeons continuous, specific “Assault Run” moments should serve as combat peaks—where players are locked into a sustained battle sequence until a major encounter or objective is complete.

:fire: Examples of Where This Already Works:

  • Deadmines: Opening the final door to VanCleef’s ship would trigger the waves of mobs to begin preparing to engage the party (adding a stacking buff to each mob), each on separate timers to join the fight. Engaging mob waves early would reduce the difficulty of the mob incentivizing constant engagement.
  • Stratholme (Living Side): Entering the Crimson Stronghold, if the skeletons that spawn behind the party spawned continuously and path towards, increasing in difficutly with each wave, if would create a pressure cooker where resting is not an option—dense mob waves, no safe pause zones. Rushing to complete the dungeon would be the only option.

:white_check_mark: New System: Assault Run Zones

  • Triggered by crossing a threshold or completing a prior objective
  • Disables resting or resets (similar to Torghast floor completion triggers)
  • Failure or wipe resets the entire sequence
  • Grants bonus loot, cosmetic unlocks, or achievement progress for completion

Optional Enhancements

  • Directional-Only Progression: Locked doors behind the group prevent backtracking.
  • Player Buff Checkpoints: After a mini-boss or wave, allow the party to choose a temporary party-wide buff (e.g., +5% AoE damage).
  • Dungeon Reputation or Meta Track: Continuous runs reward a progression path for mounts, titles, or dungeon-specific perks.

Conclusion

By turning parts of dungeons into thrilling gauntlets of sustained combat, WoW’s dungeons can evolve from rinse-and-repeat encounters into signature challenges. These enhancements do not replace the classic dungeon feel but elevate it—reinvigorating both Classic and Retail formats with variety, tension, and high replayability.

Let dungeons be something players look forward to conquering again and again—not just for loot, but for the thrill of the fight.

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Think you meant to post this in sod/retail

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I heard they were taking suggestions for Wow Classic Plus, is there a better area for that audience?

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I would say that OP’s complete reliance on ChatGPT for this post is cringe, but then I realized in 5 years, games will be entirely developed by AI.

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If you have a lot of information you’d like to format in a readable manner quickly, why wouldn’t you use Chat GPT? Technology is often used this way from calculators to spreadsheets, auto-correct, and many more examples. It’s a technology that’s here and isn’t going away, why not use it?

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Interesting concept, gauntlet style can be fun and I think it is important to make the world and enemies feel like threats but…

There’s no way I’m getting behind the EDETCCARS acronym, it is like almost the opposite of an acronym because parsing it is just too much, it reads like a bloated weapons contract the pentagon is signing off on.

I’d like classic+ to leave the base game as it is and maybe even add temporary test zones to feel out different ideas while leaving the classic base game as a foundation and then adding more permanent but potentially changing zones to accommodate development.

This way they could go wild adding things that are wildly inappropriate and take it down when everyone freaks out or it breaks things

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/OOM :sob:

But my mana . . .

Actually, if one of the rewards for staying in constant combat was a pop-up window that allowed the group members to choose from a damage buff, defense buff or a full mana regen, this could be really hella fun.

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Sounds like a chinese farmers dream. Pull the* whole instance and get rewarded with additional damage buffs, profit.

Go back to retail kid

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@Keitterman, let me start by saying that I have not read your post in full. I’m headed out the door and this caught my eye. I will make time later to follow up. With that said, I want to say that I appreciate and respect the time you have clearly put into this idea and for the effort you have invested in ensuring that it’s well presented and readable. Thank you :slight_smile:

With that said, I want to offer my initial thought to what I have skimmed thus far, which is that I think this is a concept that should be used sparingly. It is a retail design to have dungeons be a go-go-go type of environment, as evidenced by the M+ design and it’s timer. I will freely admit that I have had many wonderful engagements with the M+ system in the past and treasure the time I spent there.

However, Era is not Retail and the design principles are different. I actually appreciate the slower pace of dungeons in Era and I enjoy that, as a healer, my mana is a resource that I must carefully ration in order to ensure that I can help the dungeon group move efficiently as possible. My team is responsible for helping me to do this by ensuring that they avoid unnecessary damage whenever possible so that I don’t have to use that resource when I don’t have to. Indeed, most other DPS classes fall into this same category, needing to use mana for damage and this must be replenished. Optimal gameplay revolves around using that resource in efficient ways.

The outlier here is Warriors. They are the only class whose resource is replenished by continuous combat, which is at odds with the design of every other class except rogues, who have no time pressure either way for their resource. I would actually propose a change to warriors to bring them in line, in the form of a stacking debuff based on rage spent that reduces the amount of rage gained. This debuff is removed over time (similar to how mana regenerates over time) or by using food/water to remove it more quickly (similar to drinking).

I’m all for fast and efficient dungeons, but that should be a player driven goal based on experience and expertise developed with the content, not something that the game pushes on you as a requirement.

That’s all for now, I’m going to come back to this after work and give your post a more thorough read. Have a great day!

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lol. Yea. You running out the door.

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Spoken like a man.
One not blessed with a spouse or significant other that says “just a minute” after assurances that this time we’ll arrive at that destination when expected without having to break land speed records to do it.

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lol just saying it’s a long paragraph for running out the door.

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Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I main as a healer too—Holy Priest, Classic only. I haven’t ventured into retail, and I’m not looking to raid—just focused on 5-man content, where I find the most fun. I really enjoy building around high spirit and items like Second Wind, going down the Discipline tree far enough to pick up Inner Focus.

I keep four ranks of Heal/Greater Heal on my bar to fine-tune each cast and minimize overhealing. My general strategy is to create as many >5-second gaps as possible between casts so I can maximize mana regen mid-fight. If I have to heal, I aim to use the smallest spell that gets the job done. Renew is for consistent chip damage on DPS, but I use it sparingly—it’s pricey. Power Word: Shield is my panic button—if someone’s scraping 10% HP, that shield buys just enough time for the real heal to land.

My goal is simple: as long as I’ve got half a mana bar, the tank keeps pulling. The best moments—the ones we laugh about later—are when everything’s on the edge. “How did we survive that?! Your mana bar was a ghost town for half the fight!” That’s the magic of Classic for me.

I’m not super up-to-date on anything beyond Wrath, but coming back to Classic now, it feels a bit too slow—lots of sitting, refreshing, and repeating the same pulls without that chaotic fun. Maybe these ideas are off-base, but if they spark even a small conversation that helps bring back those unforgettable, white-knuckle moments we all love, then I’m glad I shared.

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That’s kinda the important thing to remember:
we don’t all love the same things. And that’s okay.

What to you is “too slow” is for me an opportunity to share words or a laugh or two in the moment. Why delay that enjoyment?

This. Especially the bolded. In a nutshell.
Enjoy the game the way you wish but let the player choose their preferred way to interact.

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Reporting every single one of these AI Garbage chat GPT queries as spam.

You didnt write any of this.

This isnt your work or your idea.

Reported + Muted thread.

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I understand that we all communicate through typed words, shaped by how we organize our thoughts and understand language. I chose to use a tool that helps me express those thoughts more clearly. If that came across the wrong way, it wasn’t my intention. I’m curious—was there something about it that felt off or frustrating to you?

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So I did go back and read through your post. I think I do stand by my fast response. To elaborate…

I think that’s totally fair! However, that’s the version of the game you’re coming back to. As Nueces pointed out…

I don’t think we need this version of the game to be all things to everybody. That’s the beauty of having so many different flavours of WoW. What one doesn’t provide can be found in another, and all under the same $15 USD per month subscription!

Honestly, it sounds like what you really want here is M+. I’m not going to lie to you, in order to engage with it you’re going to have to put up with some “retailisms”, but the barrier to entry is pretty thin and once you’re in and running with a consistent group, you’re just not going to notice those pain points as much. Then, when you want some more methodical, chill gameplay, come play Era. You’ll still get those white knuckle moments, they’ll just be different and a lot less curated.

For what it’s worth, I come to Era because I like slower, methodical dungeon adventures. It doesn’t matter how many times I do BRD, I just love the whole vibe of it! While speed running it can certainly add some new challenge and flair, that’s something for me to decide not the game. At least not in Era :wink:

You did fine here. Don’t pay any attention to that dude, he’s a miserable troll. I highly suggest you put him on ignore like a lot of us have. I suspect he’s got a hidden profile so if you need help with this, let me know :slight_smile:

You demonstrated an appropriate use of AI tools for communication. Whatever your English language skillset is, your post is readable and authentic. If you used ChatGPT to help make your post more consistent and well-written, well, that’s exactly what these tools are for. It’s pretty normalized for us all to have spell checkers built into our browsers to make sure that we are spelling words correctly, what you did is just a next iteration of that.

I’d advise against using it to completely generate your topic, but using it to curate and edit is very much appropriate. While I don’t agree with your post, I certainly appreciate it :slight_smile: