Edit: I should probably mention that these changes focuses entirely on improving PVP content wise, not gameplay wise while it seems the general consensus gameplay wise would be to revert pruning and bring back more complex gameplay. I also decided to not add soloqueue as one of my points because they just mentioned in the past QA that there's no plans to add it although I do think it'd be a good thing to add.
So currently PVP has plenty of room to improve so I decided to make a list (a large wall of text) of things that could be done to improve PVP as an experience for BFA. This is mostly related to content as opposed to balancing although I do talk about rewards and gear too. I decided to include things related to both world PVP, casual pup, and rated pvp. The whole idea of this is to allow people who only wants to play WoW for PVP to have so many reason to play it. Pretty much it would provide people with the ability to log on everyday and do something different with PVP that still provides meaningful progression.
1. Stop pushing for 3v3 arena to be the end all be all for rated pvp content Blizzard should support RBGs as well. Currently Blizzard seems to only support 3v3 arena as a game mode. It’s understandable why they decided to not give gladiator titles and mounts to 2v2 due to it being far harder to balance but currently there is not much of a compelling reason to do RBGs. Right now Blizzard only acknowledges 3v3 arena with their focus being on Tournament play. Why not try to make RBGs compelling? In terms of an esports perspective (which it seems Blizzard wants pvp to be so bad) RBGs provide an easy to follow ruleset for any viewer. It’s easy to keep up with a capture the flag match, or to see what teams can gather the most resources in Arathi Basin. Objectives are game modes can be extremely fun to watch and with their casters they can show off really hype moments such as a player gaining four killing blows in rapid succession. Besides the esports perspective it would encourage far more cooperative PVP play with more players. Currently many people do RBGs for the one time rewards such as the legacy transmog. Once you get that there’s no longer the carrot on the stick that keeps you wanting to come back. The fact of the matter is that getting 10 people becomes far more of a chore when you know you can get one other person and get the same rewards or two other people and potentially get mounts and a title. One solution is to give RBG players their own mount, and their own transmog set to go after. For example 3v3 arena can still have recolors of the raid sets while RBGs can be far more akin to Season 16 in WoD where you get a set inspired but themed differently from the raid sets. In addition to that Blizzard should introduce 6v6 RBGs permanently should they see it as a better way to experience RBGs. In addition to this they can introduce solo queuing for RBGs. Also as another compelling reason if you are top 1% for any of the BFA seasons you should gain access to a recolor of the challenge mode set (hey if they have two extra recolors may as well use em amiright? Keeps them exclusive too). Basically what I want is for Blizzard to support two modes of PVP instead of only paying attention to 3v3, which honeslty seems like one of the largest reasons we havent seen much new BG content.
2. Blizzard needs to encourage world pvp by adding objectives and different daily/weekly quests. With the new system added in BFA where one can choose whether they want to be on a PVP server through toggle this would be the perfect time to go back and make any zone a worthwhile battlefield. One thing that could be done is to have a daily quest that encourages you to go to a legacy zone. For example there could be a quest that is a call to arms for Outland where you have to capture the Towers in the various zones, gain control of Halaa, and get something like 50-100 kills. This same thing can be applied to all of the other expansion zones. A quest like this could reward a cache with guarenteed gladiator gear along with a huge chunk of honor, marks of honor and currency to buy gear. In addition to that there should be weekly quest that encourages horde and alliance to kill a boss at the capital city while greatly buffing the particular boss for the week. This in addition to a bounty system they thought of introducing would make a great way for World PVP to appeal to both casual and rated players alike.
3. Have a world PVP currency system. Pretty much what I’m asking for here is something like Bloody coins for the timeless isle that applies to all of the zones in WoW except keep it alliance and horde exclusive (although if they have items that flags you for both factions across the world that would be nice too). What a system like this could provide is something that keep PVPers engaged outside of their BG/Arena time. In other words by participating in World PVP blizzard could introduce new items (toys, cosmetic gear, pets, enchantment appearances) that encourages people to PVP but in addition to this have this be a steady way for people to either grind honor (as currently you gain honor at an extremely slow rate) and as a way to get a hold of marks of honor. Also this would be a perfect way to allow people to grind gear outside of instanced PVP as a viable option.
4. Introduce PVP themed world quests throughout all zones (have it alternate though). This branches off of my idea about a call to arms for a specific continent. Pretty much if Northrend was chosen as the call to arms zone in addition to having a daily/weekly quest to take over towers (for any expansion that doesn’t have capturable buildings just make some existing buildings capturable) add PVP world quests in these zones. All of the rewards here would be quick rewards such as additional honor or a piece of pvp gear. But don’t make PVP world quests not require PVP as it’d be a waste. They should all include player vs player interaction that can even encourage group player with some of them.
5. Make use of the older World PVP zones. Currently we have Wintergrasp, Too Barad, and Ashran that are all currently useless in terms of current rewards. Blizzard wants to keep the zones in their respective old level brackets containing whatever old rewards they have. So my solution to making them useful again is just having queueable versions of these zones that are scaled to level 120 with updated rewards. In other words if I want to access level 80 wintergrasp I still just go there the same exact way but instead there’s just an option for a level 120 version now. In this queue it could be separated in a playlist called large scale battles that have people queue in 40 player+ zones. This would essentially add in Isle of Conquest, and Alterac Valley in this playlist too allowing people who want to participate in PVP zones with PVE elements to have own playlist. I say because people in this playlist would expect to play longer games this would be the perfect time to introduce an old school AV mode where mob health is greatly increased that way we don’t have the stupidly quick rush to Stormpike or Drekthar,
6. Adjust the current gearing system while getting rid of templates (just give low iLVL players an iLVL boost in instanced pvp). In legion with the way gear currently works PVP gear is no longer the most suitable for PVP. It requires far more work to get it due to rating requirements making Mythic+ a far more viable way to gain gear. In addition to this the template system has taken away all control a player once had with the stats of their character. In addition to this for those who do relies on obtaining PVP gear they have to rely on a loot box system that never guarantees loot. Due to all of these issues I think moving back to a currency system as a way to acquire gear is the best way to avoid these gear issues. Have loot boxes be a bonus for winning rather than the main acquisition of gear. The WoD system of gearing wasn’t broken as it allowed PVP gear to always remain the best in PVP situations with the only issue being the locking of offset pieces in loot boxes from Ashran. As long as all offset pieces can be obtainable through a normal vendor the WoD system is the best thing for pvp gear as it scales up in combat which takes away from the crazy inbalancing of World PVP allowing for PVPers to compete with mythic geared players while in instanced pvp mythic geared players are scaled down 10 ilvls below the best PVP gear like in WoD. Blizzard can still keep a base item level scale to allow lower geared players to be able to compete with geared players to an extent by having them be around 25 item levels below top item level pvp gear while having something like honor gear being 15 item levels below what was formerly known as conquest gear but just get rid of the template system entirely in favor of the scalable PVP gear. In addition to this add resilience as a pvp gear stat to combat the craziness of mythic level trinkets in outdoor content. This helps with the issue of creating glass cannons but it also maintains PVP gear as superior at all times as even lower item level pvp gear should still compete with PVE gear in world pvp situations.
7. Have a PVP capital/pvp meet up place. I feel that this is severely needed for PVPers since there’s not really a true place to go. I feel that with the theme of Battle For Azeroth we could easily have an Island in-between Kul Tiras and Zandalar that allows both alliance and horde to meet up as a sort of place themed for PVPers. This would host things such as PVP vendors, a dueling area, an arena for both alliance and horde to fight while flagged. A 1v1 arena area where people can place bets for wager matches. This would essentially be a place where you could grab a quick 2’s partner or where your RBG team could meet up to do some quick duels and test their talents. Also while I said to get rid of templates if they are here to stay this arena could easily be the place where templates are enabled for dueling and target dummy purposes. This could also easily be a way to add in other additional cool pvp achievements similar to the Ratstallion achievement. This could also be a place where a brawlers guild system could be applied to PVP should they decide to do it. Have it be an island where Alliance and Horde are on opposite ends of the island that way anyone who ventures past the protection of guards can engage in World PVP straight away.
8. Make honor account wide and have all honor talents available right off the bat. Honestly I still don’t see Blizzard’s reasoning for not doing this. They say they want it to be a sort of badge of honor to say you a skilled with a character but it’s only a participation reward that only tells someone that you’ve kept up with your world quests the entire expansion. This discourages switching to a new main midway through an expansion and unlike the gear grinds that were still fairly obtainable in the past the moment you miss out on gaining honor for a few weeks/months you are forever behind. It is also discouraging that you don’t gain all that much honor through most PVP activities besides world quests and your daily bg/arena for those who are behind.
9. Add more BGs/Brawls. This is a no brainer. Blizzard should just separate BGs by gametype and focus on making new maps for existing game modes. Not every map needs to be a unique game mode although they can certainly have some BGs be different game modes with a twist. This goes for brawls also. I’d make brawls be weekly rather than biweekly and add more over the course of every content patch. Honestly there’s no reason to leave PVP players in the dark with no new maps. Blizzard can either make a playlist system while a person can exclusively queue up for say Capture the Flag battlegrounds or in the Random Battleground option have it where all similar battlegrounds are categorized as one. In other words if I don’t want to play warning gulch by extension it should apply to twin peaks too since they are the same besides the map.
10. Add in elite sets as a reward for CURRENT high rated players. Basically what I’m saying is have a way to bring back the old elite sets. If Blizzard wants to encourage people to go into RBGs make it an RBG only reward that requires 2k+ (just a ballpark number it should probably change depending on the season as 2k one season can be alot easier than 2k in another season) rating if you want the old sets. Otherwise have it obtainable in both rated 3v3 and RBGs. There’s no reason to have mythic raid sets be obtainable all the way through the end of time but not have the pvp elite sets be. By having them be locked by CURRENT rating it encourages people to keep returning every season to get every set. In addition to that the sets still maintain their prestige as you still are required to obtain higher ratings to have the sets. Because the titles
11. The reward structure of the prestige system should be change. The legion prestige system is extremely disappointing when you get relatively useless rewards on your 23rd rank. Like honestly getting AP or Marks of Honor is seriously disappointing when those should be passively unlocked through PVP. What can be done is adding far more mounts and even giving one vicious saddle as a one time catchup method to the usual arena/rbg wins. Maybe new transformation items could be added themed around the expansion. Or maybe we can get more alliance and horde themed sets. If we have a better way to obtain honor along with superior rewards it will definitely keep people far more invested.