This stress test was buggy as fuck. Couldn't go down below without extreme rubberbanding, and they nurfed the control of the 4man ship, giving it an extra rotation on the wheel, and slowing down the sail adjustments even more. I like the change that added a three man option on the 4man ship with improved speed on wheel control and sail control, but the 4man version was nurfed to hard. It's too easy to escape combat, and the lack of maneuverability made it even more annoying to take on another ship. The little ship should not be able to completely outrun the larger ship, either.
Things that have improved, the skeleton difficulty, spawn rate, and the challenges surrounding skull challenges (even if you could turn those in). Also the number of chests you get. Felt a bit like GTA5 Online.
Also, fucking pussies, man, turn and fight you faggots. Every ship we encountered just ran away or avoided us instead of trying to come at us. We chased a ship for like thirty minutes, which also brings up another annoyance, the rate at which the wind changed directions, and the frequency with which the wind was blowing against you.
During alpha when it involved three large ships the battles were epic. During the stress test it was mostly spent trying to just get in range of either ship.
Also, the clues have gotten dumb or maybe we just didn't see these clues during alpha, but "find the bird statue" on an island with three or more bird statues is dumb as fuck.