A lot of players who push for open-world PvP in MMORPGs (outside of structured systems like battlegrounds, realm vs. realm, or other organized formats) aren't really looking for balanced competition. They're looking for situations where they can create an advantage and power imbalance - catching someone off guard, out-gearing them, outnumbering, better/more "meta" class choice, or otherwise unable to respond on equal footing. It's not about the "thrill" of meaningful PvP and more about control, dominance, or outright griefing.
If the goal were truly fair, skill-based fights, those players would gravitate toward games designed around equalized conditions, such as FPS titles, MOBAs, or even structured PvP modes within MMOs themselves - where everyone has access to the same tools and the outcome is more directly tied to player skill. Those environments remove most of the external variables like gear disparity, surprise attacks, or uneven numbers, which are often what open-world PvP relies on.
In PvE-centric MMOs especially, open PvP systems tend to clash with the core design. The majority of players are there to progress, explore, or cooperate, not to be interrupted by unpredictable encounters they didn't opt into. It creates a dynamic where PvP doesn't enhance the experience, it just disrupts it and creates unneeded friction that causes many players to quit the game.
In nearly 30 years of playing MMOs, I can literally count on one hand the number of open-world PvP encounters that actually felt like a close, skillful, back-and-forth fight (and that's why I can count them, because they were so rare they ended up being that memorable/outside the "norm"). The vast majority weren't competitive. They were one-sided, opportunistic, and over quickly. That pattern says a lot about what these systems actually produce in practice versus what people claim they want from them.
