As someone who has actually worked in this industry and had books published previously, if I don’t feel connected with the character or story, I’m going to be bored – and so is the reader.
YMMV of course but I’m absolutely the opposite. Being “immersed” for me doesn’t mean I’m self-inserting, it means I understand the narrative, think it’s solid, think the character motivations make sense, and can write from that angle.
I haven’t felt like writing in WoW since around Legion because the story is awful and my characters do not have motivations that fit with the direction the “plot” is going for over a decade now. Add on that the dice-rolling obsession and ERP-centric focus of most the RPers I have run into, and I’m just noping out of it entirely.
Edit: as for losing a fight, I never cared. What I care about is how boring and scripted it feels to stand around for hours waiting for an event to finish while I’ve already long since fallen asleep. I am not one for dice roll RP. It’s just not my thing and never will be.