tiny female armors!

[RiyahArp]

Actually, it used to be a thing where men were relatively skimpily dressed too. Conan of Cimmeria goes barechested, with leather boots and loincloth. John Carter of Mars wears less, and depending who draws Elric of Melnibone, he is often wearing not much either. Trazan of the Apes as well. A lot of the "naked fantasy" look is from artists like Frank Frazetta, Julie Bell, and Boris Vallejo. It's just generally that it seems to have fallen out of fashion from the late seventies.

if you want a humorous example, go watch a clip of the old fantasy movie Zardoz. You can see the esteemed Sean Connery in a one piece man swimsuit, with thigh-highs and a mustache. It's funny now, but that actually was typical fantasy/sf house style for artwork at the time.

[Wilford111]

Is there really any controversy here? There are so many glams in this game, you can completely cover yourself or make yourself naked. It's really up to the user. And are we really going to debate lore reasons why a glam armour set protects the wearer?

[Tridus]

This breaks my immersion. Only catboys should be tanking in tiny clothes for entirely legitimate lore reasons that I can't articulate but that I'm sure are absolutely real.

[KisaiTenshi]

Honestly, the only bikini armor in XIV for tanks is the Shisui. The Coliseum gear is DoW, having a lower def. value that tank-only gear. I think they did a great job keeping those the the minium.

The Shisui is not bikini armor, it has arms and legs and a skirt. It still doesn't cover the important areas.



(Healer gear, fending gear is basically the same but covers less)

Given it's also not "sexy boobsock armor", it's at least cute compared to the coliseum gear which is basically a tiny bikini with a hood.

The fact that you can actually glamor a bikini over most gear in the game also makes the argument moot.

[Vidu]

Given it's also not "sexy boobsock armor", it's at least cute compared to the coliseum gear which is basically a tiny bikini with a hood.

The fact that you can actually glamor a bikini over most gear in the game also makes the argument moot.

As I explained: The Coliseum gear is designed that way because its made for the Coliseum, where its not about "looking cute" but to show off muscles and the like for the audience.

I also covered the glamour-part before: Glamour, lorewise, works like glamour gameplaywise. Your character is still wearing the actual gear, but has cast an illusion/magic spell over it that makes it seem they're wearing something different for those looking at it.

Wether you personally like the look of a certain glamour or not is not really up to debate here and comes down to personal taste - "cute" doesnt protect you from monster-attacks (no idea what really actually does when it comes to the Shisui-gear, but I hope you get the point). In most cases what protects you is the armor you're wearing underneath your glamour.

[ElHeggunte]

Complaints about the practicality of armor begin to fall apart when you realize no amount of armor would realistically protect you from most of the things you fight in games like this anyway.

For example, I think the dude in full plate is just as fucked as the girl in a cloth bikini when it comes to tanking hits from something as big and powerful as Nidhogg. Unless you think you could survive being hit by a speeding freight train just because you put yourself in a soup can, but I’m certain that physics would vehemently disagree with you.

[Esp]

Let's not forget that we can fall/jump from amazing heights and land without breaking a thing in some dungeons xD

[Reslin]

Realistically we shouldn't be able to take hits in revealing armor. Realistically we also shouldn't be able to swim, dive, backflip or run endlessly in full plate gear. When you consider that every piece of gear in game is actually weightless it matters little which body parts they cover (or don't).

Actually you can run, cartwheel, somersault, and run in full speed in platemail. It's not much less maneuverable than being unarmored. Look up Mobility in medieval plate armor for examples.

[KisaiTenshi]

If I have to share my opinion... Personally, I am not a huge fan of skimpy armor at all. I don't care if others use it, but I personally won't because it feels stupid. Using "magic" as a excuse for their fanservice is the same line of reasoning of using child-like "loli" characters and excuse yourself saying "oh but they are 9999 years old", in other MMOs. I just... doesn't work for me. But that's how I perceive it, people are free to do whatever they want.

Some MMO's know their audience. If a game is marketed using boobsock sexy-armor, then the target audience is teen males.

For all the gear there is in FFXIV, I'm glad it's nothing like B&S or Tera's where the majority of all the non-chibi races gear tilts so far towards sexy that it's a joke.

Wether you personally like the look of a certain glamour or not is not really up to debate here and comes down to personal taste - "cute" doesnt protect you from monster-attacks (no idea what really actually does when it comes to the Shisui-gear, but I hope you get the point). In most cases what protects you is the armor you're wearing underneath your glamour.

If you personally like the look of a gear or glamor determines if you will go through the effort of finding all the pieces to the set or mix-and-match. Personally I found the Shisui level 63 gear to be cute and after I out-geared it I glamoured it to the other gear. But for the most part it was the same stats as ilevel 270 level 60 augmented shire gear.

The fact that the Shisui gear at least looks like it was derived from a swimsuit should not be lost on people since you get it from the Shisui of the Violet Tides dungeon which is at the bottom of the Ruby Sea.

[Kacho_Nacho]

I guess you all are bored today. Me too!

I blame Elmore for a lot of the bikini armor out there. He wasn't the first; but, he's the artist whose fantasy art was featured most in AD&D and other games. So, ladies wearing their skimpy armor while the men fought in heavy armor without helmets has grown into an expected trope in MMOs.

But..

All that really doesn't matter because it's a game, and people get to choose whatever their gear looks like. It's no biggie.

In fact, that OP's suggestion is clever and got a smile from me. Sivvy's posted gif was funny too.