ah. then let me introduce you to the man who created this feature in the first place
if you’ve been here for more than a year or two you probably remember a clan called noble phantasm. they were public enemy number 1, known for sinking pve ships on the edge of the dark sea and pirating all of their sealed chests. the leader of this clan designed the renown system all the way back in early access, back from the reputation system, which was more significantly pve based.
the pve sources of renown are almost entirely for the creation of renown. since every interaction between players is a net negative in terms of renown, some new renown has to be created somehow. pvp is supposed to distribute this created renown amongst the pvp players, and eventually the person who kills the most people should end up at the top of the leaderboards. this is why pve players can’t go past 250k renown, or they would be able to accumulate as much renown as they wanted without ever getting it taken away from them (although it does softcap at 1,000,000)
it isn’t really balanced, of course, since you can accumulate far too much renown with pve, but whatever. the highest stretches of renown are not meant to be within the bounds of pve. that’s been the point since the very beginning
sure, the game isn’t pvp focused. but it’s had a pvp mechanic in the game for as long as its existed, and so has every single game in this series. this is the first time in a decade where the pvp system in these games has been toggleable. just because the main part of the game is the story and bosses doesn’t mean that there isn’t a pvp system in this game. pvp content is side content just as much as bosses and dark sea and charting and every other form of pve is.
the developers have said, time and time again, that a route of pvp after full release would award cosmetics to make it worth pursuing. there’s even a hidden title in the game (that makes npcs tell you to take a shower) for winning a tournament.
in short, these are pvp items. that’s the point. that’s the whole reason their renown requirement is above the set limit the pvp toggle puts you at. if you really don’t want to go through the trouble to kill people for them, there are plenty of other items for your vanity.