Does instant transportation effect game immersion?

[Rhomagus]

The choice of an airship cutscene is fine and the early implementation of it is also fine considering the reason why people have been clamoring for it in the first place. Put the bells and whistles on when you have them. Same goes for the chocobo implementation in 1.19.

My suspension of disbelief i.e. "immersion" is more hurt by retcons in the storyline and the lack of basic human interactions like jump, PvP, or tandem emotes with other players. I don't think I could ever sit through a roleplayed fight while watching the RPer's characters just stand there /emoting at each other. That hurts immersion more than anything.

Watching my character walk up 8ft. walls with ease but unable to step over a rock that's shorter than his shin hurts immersion. More often than not, the inconvenient one pulls me out rather than the convenient glitch up a wall. I'm more prone to reacting in disgust/annoyance when I'm inconvenienced rather than convenienced.

Real people in the real world can actually jump. Jumping does not hurt immersion, it hurts "those who don't want people to jump"'s immersion.

To cutscene or not to cutscene is perfectly fine by me. That's my answer.

The "hurts immersion" arguments usually squander gameplay and accessibility for tedium. I'm never in favor of that. When the immersion includes a legitimate addition to gameplay, such as using chocobos as pack animals/war steeds, I'm always in favor of that. Funny thing is though, jumping would have added more immersion than getting rid of collision detection.

This is actually why I like Yoshida's development philosophy. The giant cakes are there. We've all (generalizing) seen the concept scene of a boat battle, but Yoshida said in an interview that they aren't just going to throw in cakes if there's no reason for it from a gameplay perspective. As of right now, there's no reason for an airship cutscene from a gameplay perspective. Until they have one, sure, go for it, but they don't as of right now and that stuff will be coming in a later patch. As of right now you can fish off the boat between Limsa and Thanalan. Awesome! There's actually a purpose for that time spent on the boat, otherwise scrap it, it's a waste of actual data resources not just dev team resources.

Asking for tedious tasks that have nothing to do with the gameplay is like saying jumping ruins immersion in basketball. You'd be surprised that there are actually people out there that believe this.