Honestly, most of the time it’s not PvP heavy, instead it’s dead. I play with some cousins and we’ve had 3 hour sessions where we’ve only occasionally seen other people through the spyglass. When we do encounter other people about half the time they aren’t interested in PvP either.
Having said that, unwelcome PvP at the wrong time can spoil a gaming session. Like, you can be attacked when you’re at the end of a long quest chain and lose hundreds of thousands worth of gold in treasure.