Gaming

That it kind of the thing tho, if you just violently smash your sword around, it's gonna break. Like katanas are pretty flimsy and a german greatsword for example could just snap it off. Let's take elden ring for example and you use your sword to find an invisible wall, that's terrible for a sword and it would go to shit really quick. So i guess in a way it's realistic. But i really don't like it when games do that. All it does for me is that i'm never going to use the nice things in the game, because they break, then you need a new one or repair it or whatever.
I'm fine with encumbrance... especially in these Bethesda games. All they do is litter the world with garbage for the player to pick up and carry around for no reason other than make the game longer.

Well, a sword is probably not gonna break after striking someone's armor 7 times, but it is gonna get uselessly dull quicker than you'd imagine. Professional chefs sharpen their knives once a month or two, and that's modern steel mostly being used against softer stuff without a lot of force. Afaik, historically soldiers did re-sharpen their blades after every battle because one battle was all it took to dull a blade made of medieval era materials.