Sorry, when you said “have the mindset that you are the character”, that came across to me as believing you are the character. Also, I have been told in the past by people who care about immersion that that is what immersion is, so I’m still trying to grasp what it actually is.
I’m also struggling to see having a UI hurts immersion, especially since, as you say, reading a book is immersion, and a book is all text. I’m wondering, also, if maybe different people mean different things when they talk about immersion.
I don’t think it’d be possible to trick me into thinking I’m not playing a video game. You can have 0 UI, and I’ll still know I’m looking at a screen and pushing buttons. Maybe way off in the future when VR has gotten a lot better, sure, probably.
The combat is really satisfying! People keep telling me I should prefer doing Baal runs over and over in Diablo 2 but I just can’t relate to that. Yeah, the game gets boring around level 70, but it’s fun up until that point, plus I am only on my third character because I’ve done once each season. I know there’s a mentality out there that a Diablo game is a failure unless it’s the only game you ever want to play for the rest of your life, (which, btw, I don’t even feel that about Diablo 2), but it’s ok to take breaks and play different games and come back to a game when it’s updated. I guess whatever people think Diablo 4 “should” be isn’t the game for me.