Will the expansion be geared towards end-game players?Follow

Ah yes, but here's the problem. Knights (Paladin's japanese original name) did use Greatswords. Back in the days, wearing plate-mail made you pretty much impervious to any and all attack from swords, bows, etc. The only way they actually got hurt was from blunt force impact, hence why maces were such an effective weapon. A greatsword was great for this since there was no guarding against it. The momentum of the blade meant it was too much to stop with a shield, a lighter one-handed weapon or even a full suit of armor. If it didnt flatout cut through it, it most certainly crushed all the bones underneath it.

If you were to give Scythes to Gladiators (which would be silly), then Paladin by that extention would automagically be using scythes, which conflicts with any and all lore. If you want scythes that badly, ninjas (and to some extend monks) used scythes since they were just farmers/peasants using anything they could get their hands on such as farm equipment they had laying around, usually inferior quality weapons that relied on simply landing the first (fatal) hit and hoping their target held a weapon of much higher quality.

But if you want to throw game lore versus real life lore in, i'd recon you'd be hard pressed finding a warrior that ever used a Great Axe as well. They were just too cumbersome, fun to have people walk around with in fantasy flicks, but if they were to have to use an Axe (opposed to simply using swords) they would use a one-handed one. Lances for Lancer were impractical too, they'd only be usable while horseback or digging themselves in to repell horsemen, little more than a mobile baricade for people to run into than it would be an actual weapon to carry into battle. Spears, sure, lances, nope. And monks using their fists? If they even would be fighting, it wouldnt be remotely close to anything you'd see on TV. They were forbidden from owning weapons, that is true, but that didnt stop them from using staves, scythes and other tools not originally intended for combat. And then there's mages, which are in a diffirent class of lore-stopper entirely since naturally such a thing does not exist. If we think of ancient druids and wise-men being the closest thing we'd have, they didnt use their canes for battle or "channeling", they used it because there werent any (proper) roads and they'd have a hard time moving around without something to support them with.

You simply cant compare the things in this game to things in the real world, even if they are "loosely" based on it. In-game lore Gladiators used any and all weapons. Fists, shields, swords, axes, bows, staves, they were all still considdered "gladiators" in the sense of them fighting in an arena. That's like saying that Final Fantasy lore has Warrior be able (and proficient) in every single weapon imaginable.

If SE wanted to let Gladiators dual-wield giant purple ******, they could because they'd just write it into the lore, regardless of how hard pressed you'd be finding a real world example.

My, aren't we getting far-reaching here? When you take an RL element and stick it into your game and follow a theme, then it is best to, I don't know, follow the theme? As was said previously, Gladiators are heavily based off of Roman Gladiators IRL. Yes, yes, they could have them all running around with a Sephiroth katana, but why? It makes no sense. There's really no reason to do that.

As for spears and lances, a lot of the spears in game are very sensible, they are spears, except for a few of the larger ones called "lances". I see LNCs and even sometimes DRGs in groups using smaller spears. There are definitely larger ones too, but it is the same type of weapon, and well... it is difficult to make a small spear look all fancy, glowy, etc.

As far as great axes, to say that people didn't use them because they were impractical (but the suggest an even more impractical weapon) is just lol-worthy.

Dude, did you even history? A greatsword is far more impractical than a properly made two-handed axe. The greatsword had huge swathing paths (that made it almost impossible to use in close quarters, or crowded areas as battlefields tended to be). The greataxe, however, at least the ones that are like the ones MRDs use, that are actually held and used in both hands, are more about applying chopping power to your target. Now those are what destroyed shields and plate armor. Go grab a fire axe, or a wood axe IRL today. Note how you can actually swing it around and it isn't "cumbersome". Heck, walk up to a tree and give one a good smack. It isn't as cumbersome as it looks.

The haft of the axe can actually be used to parry, too, just like a spear. You obviously wouldn't parry heavier weapons with it, but lighter things, yes. You seem to have this idea that two-handed axes have to be absolutely huge and have ridiculously heavy heads on them, and that's a misconception. A lot of axes I've seen have smaller, lighter heads that somewhat resemble axes used today for things like chopping wood or fire axes as I mentioned earlier.

Anyways, out of time for now, so I'll cut this short, blah.