Gladiators worth saving?

Needs more ball-throwing and more blood.

I've only ever once messed about with them, when someone in an SG I was in wanted help getting the badges. Tell you the truth, I didn't even think of it "a system" within the game, just something sort of tossed in at random.

The fact it's tied in to PVP is probably the biggest hindrance it has, imho. PVP chases people off with the "everything you know is wrong" method of powers.

When I first unlocked a gladiator I didn't even know it was for pvp, I kinda thought "Oh cool." And then went looking at my powers to see what I got. Especially when I read the text saying " The Family owes you a favor." for instance. I thought I had unlocked like a temp power to summon an ally in battle while playing. Since I am one of those who enjoys soloing occasionally a little added fire power was nice. But there was no power to be found. Years later I tried out gladiator fight in the arena for fun.

If /I/ were going to try and save them, and I know I am probably going to get hated for this, but I would retool them to be that temp power summon. Have them each have say a 15-20min cool down, only able to use one at a time so you don't spawn them all at once to overkill a mob (which would be fun personally). It would be no different than summoning a Snow Beast, Shivian, Cabal or a Vanguard heavy, even similar to the patron powers that give you summons. This way they don't just erase all the badges earned and forget about it (I doubt the badgers would like that myself included).

I already problems arise. In no order,

1)Our power list box is already kinda crowded imo, especially if you got a bunch of temp powers and with the prestiege sprints, and then with Halloween costume pieces (even though the festive temp powers do go away after awhile). So that would be a problem, visually at least.

Possible solution?: Have them have a limited use, but obtainable like the Vet base rewards. Say 5 uses, used them all up, go to the Gladiator section and "Claim Temp Power"

2) A Gladiator, with a MM especially a thug with Gang War....is probably overkill.
3) It would take away some of the challenge and/or make the game easier. I don't really know if it would be game breaking or not. To me it seems it would be like having one extra Blood Widow/Shivian power up your sleeve when things get tough.
4) From a RPers stand point. . . I'll leave that up to the player. Everyone could come up with their own reason, either they convinced so and so to turn over a new leaf on Blueside to the family owed me a favor on Redside.
5) Development/resource/time I don't know from a design standpoint what all would need to be done to make the change.

I'm sure there are other problems that I haven't thought of. That's my two cents. As for saving the system as it was actually meant to be. . . no clue sadly. It was an interesting idea, and I enjoyed playing it that one time that I did. We went a few rounds but it boiled down to who had the better minions which they had taken the time to badge hunt and get them where as I hadn't.

I think Gladiators should be refit as an aspect of the Mission Architect system. Since they allow you to spawn and control critters, why not use that as a sort of limited GM power for players? You could select your map and mission goals with the MA as normal, then opt to show up (invisible) and throw opponents at the players. You could even use the Mastermind controls to talk through your guys. And there's already a balance system in place, because you're limited in what powers you can select for MA critters. That could be hooked up to the Gladiator points system or something like it.

You'd then invite people to come and play in your scenario/map/whattheheckever in a similar way to inviting them for raids.

Remove the player control aspect and turn it into regularly scheduled, AI-run matches where players can bet on the outcome. Allow players to view the events as spectators and give tangible rewards for bettors - vanguard merits, reward merits, recipes, maybe even badges for the kids. Make the events low frequency to boost their significance and make attendance mandatory to be eligible for a reward (in other words, no dropping a bet and running off for an ITF).

SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!
COMING THIS SUNDAY NIGHT AT THE TALOS ARENA!
IT'S TEAM ARACHNOS VS THE CIRCLE OF PAAAAAIN!
SMOKE GRENADE! ABSORB PAIN! ALL THE PSYCHIC WAIL YOU CAN HANDLE!
DON'T MISS THE ACTION!

(I'm only half-joking about this idea. I don't see how this isn't ten times more interesting than day jobs.)

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No.

Let the die their death. Its just not something I want to see the resources put into (and the complete ground level up revamp that is needed would take a lot of resources)

Zeb Cook (AKA, Lord Recluse) had planned on on-going updates to the Gladiator System. Indeed, post-I6, there were some tweaks and passes. And then he split, and the system died from neglect.

FWIW, I think WW should (wo)man up and remove the Gladiator requirement from the villain accolade. One shouldn't twist players' arms to partake in gameplay that the devs themselves dislike. Much like the way they lowered the requirements for badges like Zookeeper -- badges that could only be attained by an egregious amount of farming.

I always got the feeling that the Gladiator system in this game was originally just a development testbed application the Devs used to test Mastermind functionality that got "dressed up" enough to be released as something the players could use in the arenas.

It didn't bother me that the Gladiator system never took off because it always seemed like a tacked-on recycled afterthought to begin with. It was fun thing to toy around with but only as a fringe extra, not as a core element of the overall content of the MMO. I almost hesitate to call it a significant "failure" the way Positron seems to think it was. There was no real need for it to succeed in the first place. It is what it is so I don't judge it too harshly.

Not that I'm pointing fingers but personally I feel the downfall of the IOP/base raiding system was a far most serious failure in the history of this game than the current fate of the Gladiator system. I'm willing to let both of these missteps pass away as interesting footnotes to an otherwise excellent game. *shrugs*

I think gladiators should double as staff for your SG/VG base.

It's best ignored, in my opinion. I'd never tried it until I got a friend playing the game and she wanted to try it. So we did. 15 minutes later she said, "Well, that was stupid." and that was that.

It doesn't fit thematically with the concept of heroes. It reminds me of that scene in The Dark Knight where the Joker tells two guys that he has a small organization but there's room for aggressive advancement. Then he breaks a pool cue and tosses a piece to each of them saying, "But there's only one spot. Hurry up."

I can't really imagine Superman or Iron Man doing that when recruiting for the JLA or Avengers.

Plus it's just not fun.

Reformed villains, GG. Working off their debt to society, under careful supervision, alongside good role models.

(manichean. :P)

But would they really still wear their villain uniforms?