Lastly all players are equal in everything except obviously skill level. You get every tool and weapon you'll ever use right at the start of the game and the only unlocks are about cosmetics and drip. There's no need to grind for anything like in Deep Rock except maybe captained ships, which are identical to regular ships but allow you to track your in game milestones. Even those can be bought with a regular session's worth of loot.

It's also a lot like GTA Online if you've played that. There's a lot of money making activities to do in the overworld but the game encourages other players to mess with you and also players might just choose to fight you on sight even if there's no activities involved.

Between the two Sea of Thieves rewards PvP more since you can steal all the treasure people gather and aren't just given a flat rate PvP bonus. However Sea of Thieves is way more “realistic” about crossing the map so players can't just fly a jet over to you and watching the horizon should make you impossible to sneak up on. Also not every event broadcasts itself to the server so there's still safe and quiet ways to make money.

Sort of but it's PvPvE. Normally five or six crews, with crews being 1-4 players, will be together in a server sharing the same world. Coop is important for completing voyages and world events but pvp can happen at any time so npc enemies will be the least threatening things in the game.

Actually how players interact with each other is entirely up to them so you could have friendly encounters with strangers but they might run up on you too, and the most profitable world events are basically designed to be contested though it's possible no one will. The amount of PvP you'll encounter varies from server to server, sometimes a lot and sometime none.

Gameplay isn't specific to missions like Deep Rock. You're always in the world and encounters can happen at any time.

More recent updates have added on demand matchmaking PvP as well as a Safer Seas mode where rewards are nerfed but there aren't any other crews. The game is slowly getting more accessible and new player friendly.

There's definitely a learning curve but I like it. The game world is very well made and it's unique how it throws content at you and tries to sidetrack you in a good way. Only problem there is that an ideal play session will be always be a good few hours.

Maybe there could be an RDrama guild?