Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General RPG rules: Armor Bikini vs Walking Tank

My first attempt to write about girls and sin resulted in a cold shower and a lie-down. One question remained though: when we armor plate our heroin, is it protection? Or a cover-up?



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Now on topic: why such exaggeration?

A mixture of both, of course.

I suggest 2 of you guys just go hunting, looting, gathering, survining, arena fighting for a week in the woods near the studio. One dressed in bikini and one in tank armour.

The first realist in me says:
None of them are functional. The second one too heavy, too slow, the first is more agilde yes but still does'nt cover enough. To gain agility I guess leather should be the preferable armour material, metal is not suited for adventuring. But you can't go running in the woods/sun/cold with a naked abdomen. Could work well in dialogs though (charm+10p, armour-10p).

Perhaps that's interesting for another topic, in what ways may clothing influence dialogs?
There could be npc's that disgust bikini armour and treat anyone wearing it as a **** while others are much more talkative to more seducive clothing. And are there male equivalents to this?

The second realist in me says:
The first one will sell better. Definitely. Given that the second one would be charmed to have little weight, it still won't sell.

It's clearly just the old question of (in-game-sexism / sales-with-male-public = c)
Perhaps you can avoid the negative talk : just let the npc's themselves discuss the topic. And the players as well.

My own answer to this isn't easy. It consists of several parts.

First, my "RPG Snippets" entry (in this forum here) which can be found here : http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=456346#Post456346

Second, this (it's a scientific study) : http://etd.ohiolink.edu/view.cgi?miami1146539391

Third (rather on-topic than the pevious 2 links above) : More seriously, look here : http://madartlab.com/2011/12/14/fantasy-armor-and-lady-bits/

And fourth and last, this comic : http://2.media.dorkly.cvcdn.com/57/68/449a24f4488de31e54e2f80fc61d7843.jpg

Come to think about it, the only game where people actually cared for your avatar's appearance that I remember is Fable. But nothing stopped the player from wearing a chicken costume while fighting undead at the graveyard of course.

I do hope appearance (clothing) will influence Rivellon's inhabitants in Original Sin. That could be a new quest: "The town's painter has asked me to equip the bikini armour around the graveyard. I must find a secret way in, for the guards won't let me enter with it. (they're the fellows at the freaking fcc)"

Is this a bit exaggerated?

Maybe the armor/clothing can be dependent on class. Like in D&D where you have clothing for mages/shadowdancers etc. and heavy armor for tanks.

TBH, I won't mind having a scantily clad mage if the character is supposed to fry enemies from a distance. On top of that, if the mage class has protective spells then actual armor is unnecessary. I mean spells like "mage armor", "shadow shield", "stone skin" etc.

Call me old fashioned:

Warrior armor: ring, plate armor. Can be gender based but it's still armor!
Ranger armor: Leather armor. Must be gender bases since it's tight fitting but covers everything.
Mage armor: Clothing with magical "armor" (silk, cotton ...). Yes this could be the 'armor bikini' but class it up a bit and have a nice outfit.

ps: If you do want to implement the 'armor bikini' please have it increase the charisma or reputation stat of the woman. (eg: males give discounts and are distracted, females give you the stink eye.

I strongly disagree with making them have differences. I guess this purely depends on what you're looking for in a game. If you're looking for realism then you will hate the bikini armour, and that's fair enough.

Personally I like looking at the bikini armour, when I play a third person RPG as a female, I like to be attracted to my character, I like her to have sex appeal and admire the female form, not for other NPCs to admire her, but for my own perverted reasons. If this was a first person RPG however, I would not care as I wouldn't see my character but I do rather third person. In Neverwinter Nights I always edit the texture of the armour my character is wearing to make it more attractive to me. This is one aspect I personally like in fantasy games. I like some elements of realism, and some of sheer fantasy.

I think the only solution game developers can do to remedy this is have an option like the way you often have options for violence levels; have an option for armour revealing-ness. That way people who want to realistic armour on their female characters can have them entirely plated, and people who like to perve on their characters like me can have bikini armour.

Because we wanted to exaggerate. It was on purpose. We thought it was funny. It's actually the heroin wearing a certain NPC's armor and it looked hilarious. We know the way to go lies somewhere in the middle.

Remember "Ian Livingstone's Deathtrap Dungeon" ? I mean the PC game. Pretty much meets this "exaggeration" / cliché as well.

Nice, thank for the new info :3 Altho, I already assumed that since you wasted some time of fleshing out this concept it probably end up in the game. Really looking forward to see how it looks in the game haha.

P.S. My vote for bikini, ofc. Due to obvious reasons. You know what I mean...

How about no armour at all? Heck, you've already made a game without any normal clothes - I think a game without armour, just with standard clothes, could both be more challenging and more interesting. It wouldn't be the first RPG without armour, though: Jade Empire also didn't have any armour, just amulets.

And looting armour-clad enemy corpses wouldn't necessarily help ... size does matter, after all, and it isn't very logical that you can put on a slain goblin's plate mail as a human.

If there is armour in the game, however, NPCs who can change armour size might be an interesting addition. You might need two goblin-sized sets of armour to create one human-sized set, or there might even be a quest to find some rare materials if you want to re-size a valuable set without making it lose its magical properties.

Armor bikini, please.

In April's Fool day, the game should give the male character an Armor Bikini, too. And the female character a "tank bikini" ... err ...

Damn.
Just get rid of all the clothes and that is. End of discussion :p

I thought the compromise in Divinity 2 was good. It had the unrealistic aspects of not always covering the legs, and the breast-shaped molds that wouldn't be present on real armour (because it would deflect blows TOWARDS the face), but it was closer to real-looking armour than the usual chainmail-bikini style of most RPG's.

I, personally, don't care. i can appreciate artistic value and aesthetics of "bikini armor" and at the same time appreciate realistic approach. Never had any issues with either.

Yes, I like the armors like they're in Divnity II : well-crafted for the female heroes, especially for the female very nice done ! I like them more than the male armors, but that's of course a subjective preference of me
So to say, I like to play with a female hero more than ever now ! In the past I take almost always a male hero because I'm a man, but today I love the looks, feels and the pleasures to be & play a female hero

I hope we can choose in D:OS between both armors : tank or bikini.
But not the hilarious big tank ... but it's a good joke the Larian Team did with placing afemale hero into an Armor of a giant NPC

Is it possible to get this picture a bit bigger ? Until Joram's post I had thought that the person standing in the "tank armor" was the male protagonist !

But still - yes, I definitively believe now that this "female tank armor" should be in the game ! - No-one is forced to use it, though.