You guys are not going to like this… but of you want healthy competitive ranked pvp, the gear is going to have to be standardized. This way it takes gear power out the equation and makes you focus on skill.
There should be a shop where you can go to buy your set. You can pick your perks and attributes.
If you want to pvp with gear progression it shouldn’t be ranked modes. Just casual only.
If you think about some other games. They have healthy pvp scenes cause all the gear and weapons are standardized.
From cod, to siege, to fortnite, to LoL, even runescape has game modes that have healthy pvp because all gear is standardized. It’s all standardized. You can’t lose and say oh well he has better gear…