Guild Wars 2

I have been reading in the forums here and there about how people think armor is skimpy and does not cover the body like it should. For light armor what is the point in this since they do not really wear armor they wear clothes. The magic helps protect their parts that may be exposed. Medium armor is mainly a leather type of armor that helps protect from some slashing weapons enough to get away from a warrior type and have more speed. Heavy armor well that is suppose to be the most protective of all. Still an arrow from a longbow or a powerful short bow will penetrate it. There are also fire arms that will do the same as the bow. So is armor that is suppose to cover every thing all that great? I say not really Lets look at some of the armor from the past.

First the Egyptians Their armor was mostly cloth robe with some leather maybe on the chest. Some of them used reeds as their chest armor. Only the elite warriors and the Pharaoh had a metal armor made for the chest. Legs and arms pretty much exposed. They did very well .

Next the Greeks The toughest warriors of their generation were the Spartans. Most people have seen 300. They all wore very little they had leather shorts they had bronze covered boots up to the knees, a bronze chest plate. and a bronze Helmut. Again from the top of the knee to the shorts they wore and the arms pretty much exposed although they did have leather wrist guards.

Onto the Romans. Very similar to the Greeks only difference is they had leather skirts with a bit of armor on them. Also Gladiators had little or no armor to fight with maybe an arm guard or a chest piece but not much more. Even though Gladiators were not Roman soldiers they still had a great reputation for fighting.

The Mongols Wore a full set of clothes what set them apart is they were great at riding on horseback while shooting arrows at a full gallop. What protected them was the silk shirts they wore they are proven to be similar to a bullet proof vest of their time. Also it was pretty cold where they lived. They also did great had a huge empire for a while.

Next are the Vikings They used leather for most of their armor with some iron added in. A Viking berserker may or may not have much armor on but to his enemies he was dangerous because he acted crazy. Viking woman were said to be fighters also some as great as the men.

Now the English Knight at first they wore chain male armor but found it was only good against slashing weapons. This usually covered the entire body but was poor against stabbing weapons. Eventually the Knight in shining armor full metal armor was introduced . Yes it covered everything, yes it could handle slashing and stabbing weaponry, yes it was nice and shiny. It did have drawbacks it made the user somewhat slow when fighting. Although when they hit they hit hard. As said earlier a longbow or a fire arm could penetrate that armor which made it well kind of useless.

After the Knights plate armor was not used anymore. Until the advent of bullet proof vests and Kevlar.

The point being not all armor need to be fully covering a hero that you have to be effective. So the people who think that are not being realistic at all about the situations on armor. So what some body parts are exposed makes it easier to avoid a strike, since the armor is lighter in weight and they can move more freely.

So all of you people that think that armor should cover fully to be effective think again cause it does not. So please relax about it and move on.

First of all:
Dont talk about Gladiators: Their Armor was not really meant for protection- people wanted to see blood- invalid Argument
Second:
The famous Roman Legions had quite good equipment standards for their time, and they protected their Legs by Greatshields, fighting in a closed formation…
Third:
Egypts army didnt had that much of a protection for some reasons: First oa all, most of them werent proffesional Soldiers, but Farmers that where unable to afford much more armor, secondly its darn hot in Egypt and if you want to attack anyone you have to get through the desert. By the way: Egypt only did so incredibly well during their fights, because their civilisation was far more evolved than anything else around, therefore they easily outnumbered everyone else…

In the end every Example you listed comes to that point: Either Heavy Armor was impractical, or just not affordable, and theres still a difference between “I wear only a metal bra” and “I only wear Leather/Cloth armor for a practical reason”, because even Cloth armor was designed to protect or to allow you to evade.

I could continue destroying all your Arguments, but i dont want to waste too much time by replying to this thread…

Please dont give any historical examples if you clearly have no clue about history…

Besides that your Arguments clearly dont mean anything, as this is a fantasy scenario, which means the only reason for or against Skimpy-Armor is personal preference (and maybe that the requested minimum Age is 12…). I dont really care about it, i dress my characters somehow properly, and if someone else is doing something else i dont realyy care.

Edit: English is not my first language, so im sorry for those grammatical mistakes

(I am just going to talk about the medieval armor, because I know more about that than the other armor types. Also I am happy with the armor ingame, but I would like to see certain things more or less often.)

While certainly someone doesn’t need full plate armor to be effective, it does help save you from different attacks. Besides that, one would not just wear plate armor, but below that chainmail and layers of woolen cloth, which would also help fencing off any projectiles piercing through their armor.

The thing with skimpy armor is, that it is often covering for the male counterpart (examples below this paragraph). Or the holes and gaps are in places where they serve no purpose other than ‘looking cool.’
If there is a gap between the breast area and the stomach, understandable. It will give a greater mobility because now you can bend your midrif without trouble.
However there is no reason why I should go into battle with my stomach exposed or with bare legs while my male ally next to me wears the same armor, but is fully covered.
Most glaring examples:
Phalanx set Female Male
Arah Female Male

While they have shown to also make really cool armor that is even across both genders like:
Gladiator Female Male
Human tier 3 Female Male

I am not neccessarily dissapointed in the armor in the game – actually I like the variety and the fact there is both skimpy and not skimpy armor. (hell my norn uses cultural tier 2 heavy armor which hardly covers anything, but it looks cool.)
I just wish there were more options to wear covering armor as a female character without special boob-cutouts or random open parts exposing skin. Especially if the male counterpart is fully covered. (Which has been the case with nearly every set appearing in the gemstore lately.)

Also full plate armor is heavy in itself, but it is spread across the body which evens out the weight. So although it would slow you down a bit, it’s not enough to make a major difference – otherwise people really wouldn’t wear it.

Edit: fixed not working links.