In a pvp world there isn’t anything to aim for besides being the best. You can put gear progression in and not make it so stupid that only certain people get said gear. It’s not hard yo.
Like Star Wars The Old Republic pvp gear system was all three sets of gear had the same pvp stat on it. Tier 1 you could buy, Tier 2 you could do bg’s for, and Tier 3 you got from doing rated pvp. Of course the rated stuff was better but it wasn’t locked across rating just time.