AAA Gimmicks I`m Sick of Seeing

[Kahunaburger]

See, the thing is that I HAVE checked links, sources, etc... but most of them are more or less irrelevent to the case being discussed.

Translation: you have no evidence. Well, no surprise there.

See, I myself have said a few times that there are exceptions, and pointing out those exceptions does nothing but reinforce that they exist. It in no way impacts my statements, or the nature of this discussion. Sort of like your little smokescreen about the tombs of women buried with weapons, you'll notice that armor
is not mentioned, though a shield is.

Armor? Sure. Here's some more quotes from that same link:

mid-nineteenth-century excavations on the Terek river
in the Caucasus uncovered and recognized the skeleton of a woman with armour,
arrowheads, a discus of slate, and an iron knife,

Steppe burials confidently identified as female may contain a very similar suite, including
bangles on both wrists, mirror, spindle, pottery, jewellery and a ?hero?s portion,? wine,
weapons, and even armour (Rolle, 1989 : 88).

You also overlooked a quote in the post you were responding by a German scholar pointing out previous misidentification of steppe warriors buried with armor as male because of the assumption that armored = male. Turns out that some of the skeletons in question buried with their armor had female bone structure. What do they always say that "assume" makes out of you and me?

What's more all theories aside, there are no real records from that area of the women fighting in any kind of intentional or military fashion. Dying through violence was pretty much expected, since the whole point of getting through the warriors was to kill women in children. Many were probably buried with weapons ceremonially as offerings, and indeed in some cases some of them might have died fighting back while a village was being razed or something (and the death by violence kind of demonstrates how smashingly it went).

Well, why don't you bring your revolutionary new bone analysis techniques (they work over the internet, even!), theories on Sauromatian grave goods, and disputes about the accuracy of corroborating primary sources up with the archaeologists? I'm sure the people who spend their lives studying this stuff will be absolutely be fascinated about opinion of someone on the internet in denial over the concept of any woman, at any point in history, fighting in a war.

Also, listening to a man on a video game site trying to tell me how he thinks boobs work (because he went to a museum once) never stops being incredibly entertaining. Keep it up

 

[Kahunaburger]

(which I still dont buy, theres no reason in combat a ladys mid-riff, you know with all the vital organs needs to be exposed)

I have it on good authority that Tomoe Gozen went into battle with a bare midriff.

See? She's practically wearing a bikini! History totally looks like the covers of cheap fantasy novels, guise.

 

[Vault101]

(which I still dont buy, theres no reason in combat a ladys mid-riff, you know with all the vital organs needs to be exposed)

I have it on good authority that Tomoe Gozen went into battle with a bare midriff.

[spoiler/]

[/spoiler]

See? She's practically wearing a bikini! History totally looks like the covers of cheap fantasy novels, guise.

I don't even

whats that hoarse doing?

but seriously I don't know whats more offensive....YES men are stronger and built better for fighting......but fuck me, that doesnt mean women are made of of styrafoam and cardboard and its doesn mean that through some logical gymnastics the retardly stupid armour you see is some how defendable due to "realism"

 

[Kahunaburger]

(which I still dont buy, theres no reason in combat a ladys mid-riff, you know with all the vital organs needs to be exposed)

I have it on good authority that Tomoe Gozen went into battle with a bare midriff.

[spoiler/]

[/spoiler]

See? She's practically wearing a bikini! History totally looks like the covers of cheap fantasy novels, guise.

I don't even

whats that hoarse doing?

but seriously I don't know whats more offensive....YES men are stronger and built better for fighting......but fuck me, that doesnt mean women are made of of styrafoam and cardboard and its doesn mean that through some logical gymnastics the retardly stupid armour you see is some how defendable due to "realism"

Modern action heroes do car stunts, ancient action heroes do horse stunts? Haha no idea.

Yeah, it shocks me how far some folks do to convince themselves that anyone going into battle in a bikini is practical. I'm fully expecting him to break out the "but the people a woman fights while she's wearing a bikini will be distracted by her boobs, because that's totally psychologically realistic for a soldier in the middle of a pitched battle to be distracted by" thing any time now.

 

[samaugsch]

major snip

1. I guess the reason they're willing to accept hate mail from fans is because not enough fans stop buying future games to make much of an impact on future revenue whereas overly sensitive parents (why in God's name are they even buying their kids M rated games if they're that upset about them being exposed to that sort of thing, especially when it even tells you what to expect from the game most of the time underneath the rating?) are more likely to attempt to sue. A good compromise for the killing children issue in games such as Fallout would be to make your karma take a bigger dive than if you killed an adult since people tend to react more negatively that way. This way, you can more realistic play a psychopathic asshole if so desired.
3. Maybe they have to because it's the law or something. Not sure why else they would keep doing that.
4. Maybe they charge so much for DLC to make up for the gamers that stopped playing their games . I'm not saying that they should keep doing it, however.
7. When have game developers confused female warriors with whores?
8. I have a hard time believing that all gamers care enough about the story to complain over a couple of plotholes, unless what you're saying is that if a story makes so little sense that even those who couldn't care less about games are like, "WTF was that shit?", gamers tend to care.

I don't really have anything to say about your other statements. Wait, was I supposed to respond to your opening post or was I supposed to mention gimmicks I was sick of seeing as well?

 

[Therumancer]

[q

Well, why don't you bring your revolutionary new bone analysis techniques (they work over the internet, even!), theories on Sauromatian grave goods, and disputes about the accuracy of corroborating primary sources up with the archaeologists? I'm sure the people who spend their lives studying this stuff will be absolutely be fascinated about opinion of someone on the internet in denial over the concept of any woman, at any point in history, fighting in a war.

Also, listening to a man on a video game site trying to tell me how he thinks boobs work (because he went to a museum once) never stops being incredibly entertaining. Keep it up

The thing is that your argueing nonsense. Even allowing for mistakes on my part skimming that, as I said, it represents an exception, as opposed to the rule, which I myself pointed out there were exceptions to. I could play devil's advocate myself, but that wouldn't change what I'm saying. Besides which, again, the burial remnants don't match any records, which means they could have been buried that way for a number of reasons.

That said, if you were really going to be smart about this, you could start looking at China and India, as well as the concept of a "Maiden Guard" which exists for a reason. The idea being that in certain areas for reasons of security no man was allowed to carry a weapon, to avoid breaking that treaty a king or ruler would have a handfull of women bearing arms to act as his protection as a matter of technicality. Some of whom did indeed wear ornamental armor and apparently performed what amounted to executions, there have even apparently been statues of them as well standing guards in tombs. But again, it represents an exception rather than a general rule.

That also incidently means that something similar could have been found in that tomb. If they made mistakes about the figures in the armor, it's probably because that is how the culture was and this stands out as being an exception as it's unusual, which is how it went unnoticed. Thus even within that enviroment these ladies probably represented something very specific, and yes some died by violence. At one time the people in that region might have tried something similar and had it backfire. After all the whole idea of a Maiden Guard is contingent on nobody else having weapons, if in an open revolt or something someone just happens to storm the place with regular troops, yeah they are going to die.

Then of course you had Viking Shieldmaidens, which are exagerrated in popular fiction, they generally didn't wear much armor though either (though they didn't run around naked). Another exception.



See, the thing is that I've presented everything I need to, a clear, concise, and factual run down on how things are. You can run around, present exceptions, and scream that I don't have any proof, I lie about actual experience, and all kinds of other things, but it means absolutly nothing.

Just face it, your done. The bottom line is that your trying to defend an indefensible position, Granted you did get me once when I skimmed that (and I concede that) but really that means very little other than I skimmed it too quickly, and it doesn't change the sheer number of absurdities like women's boxing you've been throwing out in a discussion about armor.

 

[Kahunaburger]

The thing is that your argueing nonsense. Even allowing for mistakes on my part skimming that, as I said, it represents an exception, as opposed to the rule, which I myself pointed out there were exceptions to.

Okay, so in other words you concede that women did fight, and when they fought they wore armor when they could get it. Glad we've cleared that up, then.

I could play devil's advocate myself, but that wouldn't change what I'm saying. Besides which, again, the burial remnants don't match any records, which means they could have been buried that way for a number of reasons.

Female Scythian and Sarmatian warriors are corroborated by Herodotus, Hippocrates, Polyaenus, and other ancient Greek primary sources. It's a known thing, and major steppe cultures are pretty big to write off as an "exception." That's like saying "nobody ever rode African elephants into battle. Carthage and Ethiopia? Exceptions."

Just face it, your done. The bottom line is that your trying to defend an indefensible position, Granted you did get me once when I skimmed that (and I concede that) but really that means very little other than I skimmed it too quickly, and it doesn't change the sheer number of absurdities like women's boxing you've been throwing out in a discussion about armor.

I like how you're still trying to bluster your way out of this. The historical evidence very clearly proves that women did fight in the pre-industrial world, and when it was economically feasible they fought in armor. You have basically conceded that at this point. Now, it's time to let go of your pride and accept that when historical evidence disproves your preconceived notions, the right thing to do is to gracefully accept that you were mistaken and move on.

It's okay that chainmail bikinis aren't realistic. Nobody's forcing you to stop liking games that feature them.

 

[Therumancer]

[

I like how you're still trying to bluster your way out of this. The historical evidence very clearly proves that women did fight in the pre-industrial world, and when it was economically feasible they fought in armor. You have basically conceded that at this point. Now, it's time to let go of your pride and accept that when historical evidence disproves your preconceived notions, the right thing to do is to gracefully accept that you were mistaken and move on.

It's okay that chainmail bikinis aren't realistic. Nobody's forcing you to stop liking games that feature them.

No, all it proves is that there are exceptions to every rule, and I am pretty sure I have included a (with exceptions) disclaimer a few times. Such things do not change the rule, which is what your argueing they do. Your still as wrong as you ever were.

What's more economically feasible has nothing to do with it, after all plenty of empires that could have armored all of their women if they really wanted to did not do so, so it wasn't a matter of being able to afford it. It was a matter of viability.

Given the limitations, if a woman is going to fight in some of the circumstances that fiction represents, wearing as little as possible is the way to go. There is no way around that one.

It's sort of like someone saying that Harem guards in culture X were generally eunachs, someone goes into a tomb and finds a preserved harem guard with his manhood intact. Okay so that meant there was one who was not a eunach, that doesn't change the rule, it just means that there was an exception to it, as there are to almost anything.

 

[kingthrall]

even though they are a bunch of the lamest points you could of braught up, most are correct except the naked knights whatever rant your talking about.

Dragon age 2 had less clothed women than this game and so did witcher 2. They look pretty normal to me and ive seen girls (which could be argued) out in the street wearing less clothes than this game.

edit: to the posts above arguing about armor weight ect, its a f***ing fantasy game and the fact is your inventory is full of about 20 greataxes ect that would be impossible to carry anyway. So who gives a s**t about character mobility if your progressing down that absurd path.

 

[Kahunaburger]

No, all it proves is that there are exceptions to every rule, and I am pretty sure I have included a (with exceptions) disclaimer a few times. Such things do not change the rule, which is what your argueing they do. Your still as wrong as you ever were.

As I recall, the initial question was by OP: whether chainmail bikinis are realistic. You claimed that women couldn't wear armor for reasons you never adequately explained, I countered with historical evidence of an entire culture group where women commonly fought in battles wearing armor, and now that your argument has been thoroughly refuted, it looks like you're attempting to change the subject to a discussion on how often women fought in battles.

Given the limitations, if a woman is going to fight in some of the circumstances that fiction represents, wearing as little as possible is the way to go. There is no way around that one.

Now you're trying to back out. You conceded the Sarmatians, the men and women of which went battle wearing armor. You also failed to address (and therefore effectively conceded) the multiple times in history that women have either lead armies in armor (e.g., Hangaku Gozen) or have fought in the front lines, again in armor (e.g., Khawla bint al-Azwar).

You're up against an array of archaeological finds and historical records from around the world conclusively demonstrating that, yes, individuals of both sexes wore armor when they fought in battles. In response, you have yet to give me a single citation or piece of evidence to the contrary - all you have done in this discussion is make assertions, and try to derail the discussion with non-sequiturs about how often women fought in battles.

This is where we get back to the general theme of you pretending you have knowledge on a subject, getting called out by someone who actually does have knowledge on that subject, and trying to bluster your way out of conceding that you were wrong.

 

[kingthrall]

No, all it proves is that there are exceptions to every rule, and I am pretty sure I have included a (with exceptions) disclaimer a few times. Such things do not change the rule, which is what your argueing they do. Your still as wrong as you ever were.

As I recall, the initial question was by OP: whether chainmail bikinis are realistic. You claimed that women couldn't wear armor for reasons you never adequately explained, I countered with historical evidence of an entire culture group where women commonly fought in battles wearing armor, and now that your argument has been thoroughly refuted, it looks like you're attempting to change the subject to a discussion on how often women fought in battles.

Given the limitations, if a woman is going to fight in some of the circumstances that fiction represents, wearing as little as possible is the way to go. There is no way around that one.

Now you're trying to back out. You conceded the Sarmatians, the men and women of which went battle wearing armor. You also failed to address (and therefore effectively conceded) the multiple times in history that women have either lead armies in armor (e.g., Hangaku Gozen) or have fought in the front lines, again in armor (e.g., Khawla bint al-Azwar).

You're up against an array of archaeological finds and historical records from around the world conclusively demonstrating that, yes, individuals of both sexes wore armor when they fought in battles. In response, you have yet to give me a single citation or piece of evidence to the contrary - all you have done in this discussion is make assertions, and try to derail the discussion with non-sequiturs about how often women fought in battles.

This is where we get back to the general theme of you pretending you have knowledge on a subject, getting called out by someone who actually does have knowledge on that subject, and trying to bluster your way out of conceding that you were wrong.

play medival 2 total war with mods or somthing, this is totally irrelivent and kind of stupid to bring it up about a game like diablo 3 which has enough issues as it is let alone to go on the *realism side of things*

 

[Don Savik]

How is naming your characters "Dickballs_Cuntlicker" mature?

I mean, cmon, there is zero justification for swearing outside of context. As for actual sex in video games? Why do you want to see terribly animated pixel sex anyways? The people making the game could put their focus into actually making a better game to be honest.

Things I despise in (triple A) games?

1. Grindy McGrindy unlock system (people playing longer = better than you)
2. "Cinematic Experience (no actual gameplay)
3. "Choice Systems" (pick A or B, same shit happens anyways)
4. DRM (now, if you play a drm game fine, nothing against you. Devs who put it in are jerks though. Doesn't make the game worse as a whole, buts its an unnecessary inconvenience)
5. Pointless oversexualization (I don't think anyone is debating this to be honest, but devs can't seem to take a goddam hint)
6. Regenerating health (very rarely done correctly)
7. Lack of aesthetics due to reliance on high fidelity grafix


That's my rant for the week.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

The odd thing is that if your making a female version of one of these classic characters, why would she be dressing sensibly?

I tend to dislike the whole "female armor is far more revealing" trend as much as anyone on these boards. It comes from two places - one, making a garment "sexy" results in revealing vital organs to a whole many of nasty devices. Any argument one might make about relatively difficulty in hitting a particular mark is undermined by the simple fact that the exposed area, by virtue of being "sexy" is more than large enough to land a blow upon without much trouble. In many cases, the armor would serve to hinder by being uncomfortable or outright dangerous to move about in.

That said, I do grant exceptions. First, if the general art style supports such a thing (i.e. the dudes have stupidly designed armor as well) or if the fiction supports such a thing (Mass Effect's armor as an example) I'm generally fine with it. I'm also fine with it if the armor with stupid weaknesses is generally inferior to other more obviously protective armor. Skyrim did this latter bit quite well. The most revealing armors (Hide, Forsaken and Savior's Hide) offered inferior protection to any other classes to the extent that even going a min-max route one couldn't even threaten the protection cap (where one could actually reach it with lowly orkish or eleven armor) without resorting to cheating.

In general, the more a game is designed to provide a reasonable setting to explore, the more I'm annoyed by things that are obviously stupid. World of Warcraft can have all the silly armor it wants because the whole world is silly (and death is simply a mild inconvenience).

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Given the limitations, if a woman is going to fight in some of the circumstances that fiction represents, wearing as little as possible is the way to go. There is no way around that one.

This is a point I simply do not understand. I can not think of any reasonable combat scenario in history where a combatant would see no benefit from fighting in something beyond the birthday suit. Outside of staged combat (duels for example where tenants of honor might demand such things), there is value to be had in some form of armor even if said armor was inefficient. Padded armor may turn a sword or cushion a mace blow. Chain could stop an axe or blade or arrow. Neither was particularly picky about gender being relatively form fitting.

Certainly more complex armors would require fair modification to comfortably fit the female form but modern warfare has shown us that lack of comfort makes it impossible. Form fitted body armor is rare in the private sector and utterly absent in military units and yet countless women don the very body armor men wear.

It is only with armors that were traditionally fitted would your argument have any basis. But a smith who could craft a suit of plate for man could do the same for a woman. The only issue with such a thing is that women of means to acquire such a thing (and a need for the same) were incredibly rare in European history.

So, then, how precisely is it better to fight naked? Sure you can move a little faster - that's a small blessing in the face of the realization that you'd still have to get close enough that speed of foot isn't terribly important to actually fight with sword or spear. Even a simple baggy shirt is better than nothing for it would at least obscure the true location of various bits of the body. More robust armor could take it a step further and either stop the attack or mitigate the damage.

And, since we are speaking in terms of video games, the one argument in your corner (the underlying reality that Women of means taking part in combat would be rare) falls entirely flat.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

1. Yeah, I miss when I could kill children.

You're a monster.

OT: I hate people using the term AAA.

I like censorship, so that's out.

I like gear, so that's out.

DRM is dumb. Most pirates are assholes.

DLC can be cool, so that's out.

I don't understand 5, so I'll ignore it >_>

Collectors editions can have some cool stuff I like, but whatever. I don't care about them one way or the other, really.

I want my male and female characters to look cool, some times that means sexy, other times that means realistic or fantastical.

I've not really had any endings I didn't like in a video game, so that's out.

Giving every other game a perfect score is dumb. But it's their rating system, so they can go nuts. I'll just ignore them and their opinion.

 

[Therumancer]

No, all it proves is that there are exceptions to every rule, and I am pretty sure I have included a (with exceptions) disclaimer a few times. Such things do not change the rule, which is what your argueing they do. Your still as wrong as you ever were.

As I recall, the initial question was by OP: whether chainmail bikinis are realistic. You claimed that women couldn't wear armor for reasons you never adequately explained, I countered with historical evidence of an entire culture group where women commonly fought in battles wearing armor, and now that your argument has been thoroughly refuted, it looks like you're attempting to change the subject to a discussion on how often women fought in battles.

.

Full stop, right there. You might want to go back and read what I actually over a number of messages before taking a flying leap off the deep end. What's more, I more than adequetly explained why, followed by huge amounts of nonsense.

You have basically been trying to move away from issues of practicality and the general rule of women fighting, by assuming that any exception disproves the rule. Basically high tomfoolery trying to disprove a very common sense thing, while just making my point more and more by having to grope in more extreme areas.

See, as someone who acknowledged exceptions existing pretty much from the very beginning, the only way you could "win" this arguement is to prove that women were running around armored and fighting in wars all throughout the ancient world. In which case there would be entire museums full of armor, and plenty of examples for such artwork to be drawn from, etc. The reubuttals produced have been things like "well, somewhere out in an obscure steppe culture a tomb was found with the bodies of armored women, some of whom died by violence". which pretty much makes the point for me if you have to dig for something that obscure and isolated to find any counter example.

As a general rule women did not fight, period. Women did not wear armor period. Armor is not functional for women the same way it is for men period. There is no way around the simple fact that a blow to a breastplate is going to be substantially more servere for a woman than a guy, it's just how the anatomy is. In a real fight it doesn't matter if the chestplate stopped her from being scewered, she's liable to be down from the shot and finished. This mandates a differant approach to combat if she enters it, which the overwhelming majority of women did not do specifically due to being unsuited for it.

It is not a point that can be argued. What's your arguement? Breasts don't exist? A lady's chest isn't more sensitive than a guy's (especially if she has large tracts of land)? That women were fighting throughout the entire world in vast numbers, wearing armor? No of course not, your not that foolish. Your basically jumping on this because it's me, and also because it's "hip" to knock fantasy art of that sort.

While you and others talk about underwear, I mostly just leave it at "minimal clothing" because I'm not talking about any specific piece of work. That's what you do for mobility if you don't have access to modern materials.

I'm pretty much done. If you don't want to face reality, or accept common sense, that's fine. I'm apparently not going to convince you at this point. Feel free to go on assuming that women were running around the world everywhere in armor and fighting effectively on ancient battlefields.

 

[Therumancer]

The odd thing is that if your making a female version of one of these classic characters, why would she be dressing sensibly?

I tend to dislike the whole "female armor is far more revealing" trend as much as anyone on these boards. It comes from two places - one, making a garment "sexy" results in revealing vital organs to a whole many of nasty devices. Any argument one might make about relatively difficulty in hitting a particular mark is undermined by the simple fact that the exposed area, by virtue of being "sexy" is more than large enough to land a blow upon without much trouble. In many cases, the armor would serve to hinder by being uncomfortable or outright dangerous to move about in.

That said, I do grant exceptions. First, if the general art style supports such a thing (i.e. the dudes have stupidly designed armor as well) or if the fiction supports such a thing (Mass Effect's armor as an example) I'm generally fine with it. I'm also fine with it if the armor with stupid weaknesses is generally inferior to other more obviously protective armor. Skyrim did this latter bit quite well. The most revealing armors (Hide, Forsaken and Savior's Hide) offered inferior protection to any other classes to the extent that even going a min-max route one couldn't even threaten the protection cap (where one could actually reach it with lowly orkish or eleven armor) without resorting to cheating.

In general, the more a game is designed to provide a reasonable setting to explore, the more I'm annoyed by things that are obviously stupid. World of Warcraft can have all the silly armor it wants because the whole world is silly (and death is simply a mild inconvenience).

The thing is that most of that "armor" isn't armor at all but clothing. The classic brass link bra or whatever isn't being worn because of it's protective benefits, that was just people trying to be funny, and other people taking it too seriously. Honestly it falls more under the catagory of jewlery than anything, and a display of wealth as in the primitive cultures some of that artwork represents being able to wear metal even bronze or copper is
a big deal. Something people would have picked up on if they read some of the stories those pictures were based on early on.

At any rate, the basic gist of it is this. Breasts do not make a woman an invalid, but they are far more sensitive than the same area of the chest for guys, and the larger they are the more of an issue this is. Someone smacks you in the chest and it hurts or gets annoying, you might get a big bruise or welt, but it's not going to do much in the short term or long term. You do the same thing to a girl, and while it's not identical, it's similar to a guy getting kicked in the nuts.

In a practical sense, this means that if you put on a chestplate and get into a fight and someone hits you in the chestplate you might get a bruise, but are going to keep going, assuming it didn't penetrate. Some guy hits a girl like that, even if the blow is stopped, she's going to REALLY feel it, and it's going to be much easier to just follow it up and put her down. She's gone, just as much as if she wasn't wearing the armor. It's not like a D&D game where there is just "damage" and not damage.

For a guy giving up the mobility for the protection is practical, the benefits of being able to shrug off some blows that would otherwise hit vitals, are worth giving up the range of movement. In general girls did not fight, but if one was going to fight, she'd do better to hope for a better range of moevement than someone wearing armor and hope she gets lucky, because that protection to her vitals isn't going to do much more than slow the inevitable if she winds up getting hit.

Now, when it comes to fantasy costumes that by it's nature is debatable because all kinds of magic gets involved in that kind of thing. However as a general rule when people are drawing female warriors, they tend to be presented as wearing some of these revealing outfits because in a world without spandex it tends to be a fairly practical option. What's more, when your dealing with barbarians... well barbarians didn't have much clothing or armor to begin with due to being barbaric and having little in the way of technology or development. You take a look at african tribesmen and such, and simply by wearing a halter top or whatever your typical barbarian swordswoman is being modest compared to the real deal.

The whole bit about "why women don't wear chestplates" was explained to me in detail a few times, along with all the reasons why women basically didn't enter the ancient battlefield (which is more or less common sense) despite all the fantasy of it. At the time the focus was more on how stupid Xena was (given that it was the "thing" of the moment and all kinds of girls visiting the armory museum and such thought that could be true) than anything it seemed.

I know, your probably going "ya but" or think I'm an idiot or whatever, but I've been at this for a while now, and I'm pretty much done. This is pretty much how things were, and how they are.

In the end I'm going to think what think, and those I'm discussing with are going to think what they think Nothing is going to be said that hasn't already been said.

 

[Therumancer]

Given the limitations, if a woman is going to fight in some of the circumstances that fiction represents, wearing as little as possible is the way to go. There is no way around that one.

This is a point I simply do not understand. I can not think of any reasonable combat scenario in history where a combatant would see no benefit from fighting in something beyond the birthday suit. Outside of staged combat (duels for example where tenants of honor might demand such things), there is value to be had in some form of armor even if said armor was inefficient. Padded armor may turn a sword or cushion a mace blow. Chain could stop an axe or blade or arrow. Neither was particularly picky about gender being relatively form fitting.

Certainly more complex armors would require fair modification to comfortably fit the female form but modern warfare has shown us that lack of comfort makes it impossible. Form fitted body armor is rare in the private sector and utterly absent in military units and yet countless women don the very body armor men wear.

It is only with armors that were traditionally fitted would your argument have any basis. But a smith who could craft a suit of plate for man could do the same for a woman. The only issue with such a thing is that women of means to acquire such a thing (and a need for the same) were incredibly rare in European history.

So, then, how precisely is it better to fight naked? Sure you can move a little faster - that's a small blessing in the face of the realization that you'd still have to get close enough that speed of foot isn't terribly important to actually fight with sword or spear. Even a simple baggy shirt is better than nothing for it would at least obscure the true location of various bits of the body. More robust armor could take it a step further and either stop the attack or mitigate the damage.

And, since we are speaking in terms of video games, the one argument in your corner (the underlying reality that Women of means taking part in combat would be rare) falls entirely flat.

It's like this, as a dude if someone slams you in the chest you might get a bruise or a welt, but it's not going to really do a lot to slow you down, especially with your adrenaline pumping, unless you broke some ribs or something. Thus a chestplate that stops penetration and simply puts a lot of force into your chest is practical, and worth giving up the mobility for it.

With a girl, their chest is substantially more sensitive, especially if she has large breasts. The sensation of getting seriously slammed in the chest had been described as being analogous to being kicked in the balls for a guy, albiet it's not identical. Remember we're talking a serious blow here, not just a general bang or whatever, women aren't invalids because of breasts obviously, but we're talking about some pretty serious force here. A blow that a guy might just shrug off, or even open up his opponent when it fails, is a blow that is going to literally take a girl out of a fight, and pretty much leave her open to being immediatly finished. Sure the blow might not immediatly go through the chest, but it guarantees the next blow coming a fraction of a second later is going to put her down.

Given the differances between guys and girls in general, and that's just one (which affectds armor) women generally did not fight on the ancient battlefield. They just were not suited to it. If a girl WAS going to fight, armor isn't much of an advantage because if it's a serious fight it just means she's going to be easier to hit and put down. If she is going to have any chance at all, she's going to want that little bit of extra movement over someone else not wearing armor and hope for the best. Ideally her BEST option is simply not to get into that kind of brute force fight, which is why women generally weren't warriors to begin with and didn't go running around doing that kind of stuff.

When it comes to fantasy art one of the big things to consider for starters is that the armor isn't really effective to begin with, and there haven't been any designs within a low tech level that are going to work for that. It's not a matter of shaping it to feminine contours, it's about what happens when that beastplate gets hit. It's not a matter of whether the chestpiece is going to stop the blow from puncturing anything vital, it's about whether the person wearing it is going to be in any shape to continue defending themselves. Sure it might not be long that the person is actually out, but just a couple of seconds of going "OMG" and being stunned basically means death in a real fight.

In fantasy it's easier to except such things in the abstract, by saying in say D&D that gender is irrelvent and it's all about the stats. For an artist however that is trying to do this kind of thing visually, cheesecake is admttedly part of it at times, but there is also the issue of trying to present something that might be effective. Basically if you know enough about arms and armor and athleticism to be doing some of this artwork to begin with (guys like Frank Frazetta were big time into athletics and human anatomy which helped fuel their work) they need to be able to take it seriously to really get into it. If they are doing a warrior woman that is going to kick someone's butt, most of it is going to be about attitude, with her wearing as little as possible, the idea being that she's so strong and fast (as unlikely as it is) her lack of armor isn't going to matter. Incidently that's also what most female warriors rely on in fantasy, rather than armor. I'll also be somewhat blunt in saying that in most cases the pictures do look like the characters they are supposed to be of.

 

[repeating integers]

Given the differances between guys and girls in general, and that's just one (which affectds armor) women generally did not fight on the ancient battlefield. They just were not suited to it. If a girl WAS going to fight, armor isn't much of an advantage because if it's a serious fight it just means she's going to be easier to hit and put down. If she is going to have any chance at all, she's going to want that little bit of extra movement over someone else not wearing armor and hope for the best. Ideally her BEST option is simply not to get into that kind of brute force fight, which is why women generally weren't warriors to begin with and didn't go running around doing that kind of stuff.

But... that doesn't make much sense to me. Medieval combat was a meatgrinder of people piling in, it doesn't seem likely to me that you'd get much chance for movement. Chances are, you'd just want armour to protect you from all the sharp and pointy things, and hope for the best.

This doesn't relate much to your actual big disagreement with Kahunaburger (which is incidentally very entertaining, keep it up), but I'm just confused by your point. It seems unrealistic.