Comic 426 - The Best Armour
Posted on Wednesday, the 9th of September at 12:00 AM, 2020
in 2020
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Also, don't worry, Becky isn't naked. It's just that her armour is so small, that even I had to censor it. (In reality, she's actually wearing the same clothes as the first panel. But you're not supposed to know that.)
The sad thing is, this isn't that far from the truth.
This comic depicts three things that I don't like.
The first is that fantasy armour designs in general, are terrible.
The second is that having completely different armour designs for males and females, is even worse.
The third is that bikini armour, is the absolute worst!
Now there are several reasons I don't like bikini armour, so I'm not going to list them all. I'll let someone else do that. What I will say though, is that it's got nothing to do with realism. It's a high-fantasy world, I can suspend my disbelief for bikini armour to work (and you should too). Besides, people who use the realism argument, are always hypocritical assholes that are only using it because it's convenient. But even so, I don't like bikini armour, ESPECIALLY when it's some of the best armour in the game. Come on, that's just bad game design.
I get that some people (men and women) like bikini armour. But it should never, and I mean NEVER be top tier armour.
You know, I think I will list the reasons I don't like bikini armour. At least some of them.
Firstly, it's stupid. Rational thought dictates that the less that you're covered, the less protected you are. This isn't me arguing that it's unrealistic, just that it works against rational thought. (There's a difference.)
Secondly, when you get better equipment, you generally want it to be clearly shown that you've got some very good protective equipment. Bikini armour does the opposite, because as I said before, it works against rational thought.
Thirdly, some people won't want to go around wearing next to nothing. This is especially true if they have to just to have a decent defence stat. (I know I wouldn't want to wear armour that made my male character wear nothing but a speedo.)
Fourthly, it's simply bad design, because it doesn't instantly show to the player or other players in the case of an MMO, that this is very protective armour. (Although this sounds like a repeat of the second reason.)
And that's just the tip of the iceburg.
And to better describe what I mean by the realism and rational thought having a difference, I'll give you an example. Realism covers things such as the possible colour of metals for the time period, their protective qualities, the surface area they're covering, ect. Rational thought covers things such as "the bigger gun will probably be the stronger gun". What I'm trying to say is that the latter isn't always correct. There's probably a better word for it, maybe "commonsense", but I feel that covers something a bit more fluid.
To give a better example, the first bullet proof clothes were basically just layered silk. Now I want you to imagine a game where wearing several silk shirts will give you a bulletproof effect. It's realistic, but it's also pretty stupid in regards to rational thought.
The only time "realism" should ever enter the argument, is when the content in question is striving for absolute realism, such as a driving simulator. Realism is not a valid argument when talking about high-fantasy games, zombie games, prison games with aliens in them, and pirate games with vending machines and car salesmen. You have no idea how many times people have brought up that goddamn argument on me, and it's ALWAYS only when it suits them!
"Oh, this thing is totally justified, because it's realistic, even thought it completely ruins the game, I like it. But I'm going to completely ignore all of these other things that aren't realistic, because I like those."
"Oh I hate that thing, because it's unrealistic and it should be removed. Nothing else should be removed though because there's definitely 100% certainly isn't anything else in this game that's unrealistic. LA LA LA LA! I CAN'T HEAR YOU! LA LA LA LA!"
...
Sorry about that. I just had to vent a bit.
...
Don't use the realism argument when talking about something that's inherently unrealistic.
Also, there's difference between self-consistency and realism. But I've ranted long enough.
Then the gave developers leave the "jiggle" physics enabled while the female character is wearing this armor. So of course when you jump and move about quickly, those "jiggly" bits move about. Those same jiggly bits that are covered in full-plate... that full-plate that is now jiggling around despite it supposedly being made out of iron, steel, or some other suitable metal.
Now I'm kicking myself for not adding that to my rant.