When is the sprint bar positively enhancing your gameplay experience?

Sorry for the developer speak in the question, but I'm asking from a game design perspective, what is the point of the sprint bar?

Spoiler: a little context

This question is mostly in response to this thread, which has quotes like

and

I understand how the sprint bar came to be in the game. This question is about wether or not it should be in the game.

Spoiler: A little history lesson on why and how I think the sprint bar came to be in the game

Since the start of the server, mana has been tied to the hunger bar.

Sprinting worked the same as it did in vanilla, sprinting enough makes your hunger go down.
This hunger, of course, was mana. So sprinting made mana go down.

Later they removed sprinting from the mana system. I believe they said this was done to help spell based builds. Because at the time you couldn't really afford to spam spells and later start sprinting.
In place of the hunger bar limiting sprinting, the sprint bar was introduced in its place. Presumably because it would be overpowered to be able to always sprint.

Because I am used to the sprint bar, I make sure to always have enough sprint before I get in a boss fight/difficult situation and never really get below half sprint at all.

There are only three situations where I ever run out of sprint:
- I am travelling on foot without a horse
(Let's not make the time spent travelling on foot arbitrary longer)
- I am in a parkour section where I failed a couple times in a row
(Which means one extra time you fail a jump and no further consequence)
- I am lootrunning on something other than mage
(Currently mage is the best lootrunner (which made wands worth less which is why people sometimes run on other classes but I digress) and mage is the only one where sprint barely matters. Removing sprint would make it a more even playing field.)

It never happens during combat for me because before combat I make sure to have enough sprint. But this means waiting around sometimes, which is boring. (pro game designer tip: don't make the optimal thing to do boring (I'm coming for you anoher time lootrunners and proffers))

Basically, whenever I run out of sprint, it feels like a waste of time. It does not add anything other than needing to wait.

The reason, in my eyes, for a limited sprint bar in a game is to add tension during difficult situations where one needs to sprint. Such as Chase sequences. However, what few things like that we do have are not nearly long enough to make the sprint bar go down or can be easily cheesed with movement spells.

And because I am never in a situation where the limited sprint feels like a restriction that influences me in a way other than taking extra time, I don't understand why it exists.

So I ask the question,
When has the sprint bar ever made something more enjoyable? And if the answer is never, should it continue to exist?

Sorry for making this sound so much like a suggestion. It kinda is. But I do want to know the answer to this question before I suggest it.

 

Wynncraft has a problem with resource management vis a vis being inside and outside combat. The game doesn't distinguish between the two states at all, and so decisions that make sense during combat - sprint being the current example - suddenly break down completely when you're casually jogging across the Wynn Plains, no threat in sight.

I mean, this is weird. Hunted mode proves that Wynn can track whether or not you're in combat. But it's a leftover legacy of "the devs haven't gotten around to thinking of that" yet, and so it remains ingame. Sprint serves a good purpose when you're fighting, but outside of combat there is no reason that the sprint bar should drain.

 

honestly it doesn't matter that much in combat either since most bosses outrun you anyway

 

I used to agree with this, but after paying attention to it, like I said in the thread, I (personally) never find myself running out of sprint during combat.
To be fair this might be that I've completely adapted to the sprint bar as a restriction and so I know not to sprint before danger happens.

Let me put it like this.
The only place where the sprint bar would matter during combat is in a situation where:
- walking is not fast enough but sprinting is, over a long enough time for the sprint bar to completely deplete.
- your movement spell is not a better option than sprinting.

In theory, if they made the amount of time it takes for the sprint bar to deplete a lot shorter, these situations could sometimes arise. And if they would the question of "is the game better of for it?" still exists. But as-is, I do not have any concrete examples of needing the sprint bar.

Spoiler: actually I do have one, and only one, specific example of the sprint bar being meaningfully impactful in a way other than just slowing time

Sunrise Canyone Boss Altar
Sunrise Canyon - Official Wynncraft Wiki (fandom.com)

Large open Area with a ranged boss mob in the middle. This enemy shoots arrows, sometimes arrow storm, stays still in phase 1, and moves a little in phase 2. The arrows will likely one-shot or almost one-shot you. The easiest way to dodge these arrows is by running around the enemy but its health pool is large enough that if you fight it around the suggested level and don't have an at-level high-DPS weapon, the fight lasts longer than the sprint bar. Making the better strategy not to just run around it in a circle but to sprint-walk-sprint between each shot.