Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Please let me be immersed

I wrote three pages trying to explain this to people in Rag's position, realised that it's just not going to get anywhere or achieve anything of value to do so, and am deciding not to bother.

Let me say this:

Rag; I've met people in your position before - people who don't understand why something like weapon floating above your back when you put it away, for everyone, all the time, is problematic for immersion in this space, while dragons and magic are not. They have generally been people who legitimately struggle with the concept of imagination, but struggle so without realising that it's something they struggle with - like colour-blind people who don't realise that they are, or sociopaths who learn all of the rules for what emotions are and how to read them and display them, and how to respond to others, but underneath that don't actually understand what it is to feel them.

This fictional space is different from ours, and it operates on a different set of rules. Those rules allow for things like dragons to exist, and for wizards to conjure fireballs and for mortals to attain sparks of divinity and ascent to higher beings if they are capable enough. This world that we are imagining, however, operates with a measure of internal consistency with itself - things play by rules, even though they aren't the same rules that our world plays by.

In imagining this space, and immersing ourselves in it, we accept the rules by which that world is governed - things that operate within those rules do not require any suspension of disbelief, because there is nothing wrong with them; they're part of that world. Things that do not play by those rules, and which step outside of that, or draw attention to the fact that the medium we're using to envision this world is flawed or imperfect, create immersion dissonance; too much of it, or too consistent causes of it, make it difficult or even impossible to really settle into the world space and feel like you're in it.

Because the world plays by internally consistent rules, everything that happens in it can still be traced to a how and a why, if it is understood; there are hows and whys for dragons and for magic, and for gods - magic and gods are themselves the hows and whys for many other smaller things within the world (the flame conjured by produce flame doesn't burn us, because it's magical fire that we conjured. It's that simple) - but even those, magic and gods, play by certain consistent rules that help form the world and preserve our immersion in it.

Things like 'putting the weapon away and having it float six inches behind your back' does not fit in with the structure of the world - it doesn't have a how and a why that you can trace - so it is a source of immersion dissonance in a way that a literal dragon is not. Things like 'short resting in a second because I clicked the button and numbers came up' is also a source of dissonance for the same reason - that one would be easily smoothed over if the medium we're engaging with the world through (the game), offered something to indicate or imply that we are actually taking an hour to rest and recuperate, but right now it doesn't, and even creates situations where it's actively showing or implying that we don't, and that it is instant and without any kind of movement or rest... so that's why it's a problem in the present state.