Okay, hear me out before you down-vote me. Tarkov is a video game, that attempts to emulate real life mechanics such as recoil, hunger, and correct armor penetration, the lack of realism comes from balancing of these elements, making this game hardcore. My issue with plates is that it will bring about a huge meta change that isn't beneficial to the game as it would make armor nearly useless, and this is because of one thing: Tarkov's aim and recoil mechanics coupled with a mouse and keyboard. In real life, soldiers are trained to aim for center mass, this provides the highest hit chance, with the highest chance to kill. In Tarkov, aim sway, and point firing, is far to accurate and precise compared to their real life counterparts. No one is going to reliably sight a rifle and accurately place shots in real life as well as you can in Tarkov, and because of this, armor will become hugely nerfed (Like helmets were), because of the players ability to easily aim around the plates, something that would be quite difficult IRL (and should be difficult in the game).
The armor vs. gun meta would be significantly better if weapon sway was increased, if not exaggerated to compensate for the accuracy of mouse and keyboard (Bipods would be the way to achieve nearly completely still aim), that way aiming away from armor plates is something more difficult, keeping the armor useful.
