You can invade other people and kill them for various reasons. You can even join covenants just to screw with other people, like making the monsters in their world ridiculously hard to kill, haha. The online features are seamless and amazing.
I have never played this game before, but it sounds like the online features you listed exists only to allow grieving other players.
To be fair, you can also leave messages and hints for other players so that they'll be better prepared to handle difficult areas. Helpful advice is quickly upvoted and promoted (which nets the person who posted them some rewards, though I forget what exactly), while the not so helpful bits of advice is often ignored or downvoted.








