I last played Sea of Thieves about a year and a half ago, or maybe longer.
It feels exactly the same in terms of players. Some servers are busy with player Galleons and Brigs aplenty. Some are quiet with nothing but a couple of sloops knocking around. A lot depends on your region and the times that you decide to play.
I played for a hour before work today, only saw two sloops. Last night before I went to bed I was on a server with 2 sloops a Brig and a Galleon, so that server was definitely full.
Swings and roundabouts I reckon. Although, I do think this update does favour people playing solo or as a duo in a sloop. So there might be fewer bigger ships out there for a little bit and it does seem a little quiet for this early in a new season when I would have expected people to be grinding out the rewards.
It's not so quiet that I feel it's a problem to be honest. I do feel bad for the PvP players, but I also feel completely vindicated as someone who has always enjoyed both the PvP and PvE aspects of the game.
Organic PvP, where you just so happen to be in the right place at the right time has always been more fun for me than trying to force PvP encounters.
Do people not contest FoTD anymore? Surely the PvP people could use that as their "come fight me" beacon if they do?