I disagree. PvP is very popular, most of the most popular games are PvP. What people do want is the as fair PvP as it can be, and MMORPGs fail hard at that because they can't get past the overused formula of gearing and leveling. There, I said it, I see leveling and gearing pointless elements that ruin MMORPGs and make them too costly, the World underused, past zone areas useless to come back to, quests are mostly uninspired and not fun to play, dungeons and raids are mostly a gear check, PvP is 90% just your stats, and don't let me start with goddamn evade, dodge, miss RNG mechanics that are a complete bullshit of the game design.

The game that had it right was Guild Wars 1. Too bad it is aged and forgotten by developers. Progression in terms of progressing story, getting titles, skills, making your own builds, playing in groups, lots of pvp both for casual fun and for the hardcore audience, getting unique drops, farming for skins - where you even needed to go in endgame dungeons for materials! Block was purely skill based mechanic - you gotta use a skill on a long cooldown and a short duration. Collecting miniatures, being in a guild and having a guild hall to fool around.

The only thing that Guild Wars 1 didn't have are: jumping and Open World.

A lot of game designers could look into Guild Wars 1 as a learning material for how to make games with a freaking huge amount of content without any level and gear progression. Take notes. Maybe MMORPGs could become popular again.