This looks like my kinda thread. I'm going to talk about the bigger PvP picture including duelling too, and even though you asked about Adventures, they're the one part of the game I have no clue about, because they are an unfinished mess.
There's different problems for PvP (read forts and duels) on old worlds and on new worlds. My experiences are with .NET, so I hope players from other servers post too.
- On new worlds, there's a massive premium gap, often shop clothes vs 2020 power tombola sets. It takes a year to get the players both levelled and geared to create a competitive environment... And then a new world opens and the player-base drops to non-functional levels.
- On old & stable worlds worlds, everyone has a set, but this leads to game breaking amounts of damage in a fort battle, and fort fighters in duelling clothes are almost as good a duellers in duelling clothes, but the main issue is the shrinking player-base and no migrations from the "PvP dead" worlds to reinforce the numbers.
Fort Battles
Damage reduction for very high leadership values
Giving defenders more advantages was good to see, but I feel like Attackers are still expected to win any battle on equal ground. It's a complex issue, so I will diplomatically say that I believe it ultimately comes down to the potential damage output of a team, so I'm sad that we ditched the new formula in testing.
Rewards
The best way to encourage attendance is to give better rewards than the basic exp/cash/bonds. Battles are stacked at events because you get event currency, they're stacked when Community Managers use their special tool to add something extra to Awesomia battles... We could use RNG for good, create a prize pool for a random drop from fort battles (This actually used to be a feature!), and if you want to go all in on the rewards, a new shop similar to Adventures' VP shop, And of course include PvP elements in "clicky events". Adventurers should get bonds for "ghosting" too.
Multi-Battles
I think beta has the best solution for multi battles, the cost of a 2nd, 3rd, 4th battle within a defined time gets exponentially higher, and if you want to bankrupt your town to cause havoc, you still have that freedom. Multi-battles are only ever damaging to the quality of the gameplay, and there have been a lot of multi-battle-trolls over the years. Don't even punish them, that is a form of attention, simply make it a non-viable thing to do long-term at a game level - you already have the technology.
Ranks
What's the problem with ranks? They're fine as they are, and as leader's choice. If I could change anything it would be Auto-ranking criteria as mentioned above a couple of times, but that's a low priority.
Ranks at Awesomia
We don't need ranks at Awesomia, like at all, make it a complete free for all on both sides. Now if you could Auto-balance or randomise the sides... as in you sign in then are assigned based on what side needs you, then we would be talking...
Adventures
Punishments
I believe that if you need to make a rule to cover the lack of a game mechanic, you've made a bad product. Automatically time a player out of Adventures for 5 mins the first time, 10 mins the 2nd time, 20 mins the 3rd time, etc. Should you be banned for leaving? well no, there's no way to concede afaik and the game mode is quite often unbalanced.
Improvements
Bringing the party system that's been on beta for years to general release would be cool. Would it be possible to make adventures Global, like linked across all The West markets?
Maps
Honestly, I'd prefer development time was spend elsewhere, we had an entire team of devs working on adventures back in the day, and only like 1/5th of the planned content was added - that being a single game-mode, Rush on Tombstone. A new map or game-mode would spice it up, but I don't know if I would even play it.
Duels
Rewards
Similar to fort battles, I would love it if there was some kind of random reward pool for duels, for small buffs and such and a small chance to drop one. PvP is so far behind spam 15s working on the reward for time spent front, and you have to invest so much into HP buffs and motivation.
Not enough players
There are plenty of people duelling if you go to the newest world, which has its own problems with nugget-gap, other than that it's totally barren at the top end of the duel levels. Honestly a permanent Classic West world could really cater to this niche dueller market if you can figure out how to monetise it :p
Migrations, International Events & World Specialisations
Migrations
Most of the game worlds I know about don't have an active PvP scene, and if you have a beloved character on there, it feels like you're being held prisoner in a world you can't play. Complimentary to this, the worlds with active PvP need reinforcements from well established characters after the Great Exodus of the Tank classes. You don't need to close down worlds just because they don't have Large Fort Battles every night, but the choice to move somewhere better than 30vs30 mediums on a good day would be nice.
International
I think the IFBC was a great success, despite forts being broken, I'll sign up for any international PvP event InnoGames organise.
World Specialisations
We could "re-brand" some of our more active PvP worlds, similar to how a new world is "(recommended)", and open migration routes into those worlds. We could also designate one world as a PvE world, where players can disable being duelled.