Originally Posted by
Jibjub
The design PHILOSOPHY is correct. PvP should be 100% about skill, not gear. But Blizzard failed at implementing it. Don't throw away the philosophy because Blizzard messed it up.
Here's what I would do:
1) Stats are 100% pvp templated -- gear has NO bearing on stats, zero, purely cosmetic.
2) Levels are removed in pvp -- no matter what level you are, when you go into instanced pvp, you are "max level" and have all abilities and equal gear/armor (this means you can choose whatever comp you want for arena ... which you think might be bad because "everyone will just do fotm" ... but you are wrong, this will force Blizzard to make things more balanced)
3) Add more customization / choices for your character (more complex talent trees would be nice). If this cannot be implemented without screwing up balance, I can live without it.
4) There should still be rewards. Gold, mounts, armor (for world pvp and cosmetic), prestigious stuff that you can only get from PvP (some you grind for, others you need to win a lot).
5) If ALL you want to do is PvP, it should be B2P (like GW2). You buy the game or most current expansion and you don't need to sub. You log in, you are plopped in a PvP lobby where you can mess around with your "build" and duel people and stuff. And then you queue for BGs and arenas. If you are not paying a sub, you wouldn't earn gold or other rewards (except cosmetics) but I think it'd be nice to have this hybrid model that let players PvP without having to pay a sub. It would increase PvP populations and it could still work because of numbers 1 and 2 above.
In other words, take a page out of GW2's book, but since they are Blizzard, do it way better.