As an experiment, I decided to see what the experience would be like trying to complete the Season Pass (get to level 100) simply joining open crew. For this experiment, I gave myself two stipulations:
1). Only join Sloop Open Crew (because Galleon is a nightmare awful experience for open crew and Brig is usually just meta-gamers)
2). Don't be the decider of what we do. If they are indifferent, ask questions about what they like/want to do or what they're trying to unlock/accomplish and make suggestions from there.
After joining a wild number of open crews, I was able to hit level 100 for the Season. It wasn't nearly as painful as I thought it was going to be. In fact, I had a pretty enjoyable time. LOTS of swabbies. I had a blast getting to experience old content with fresh eyes onboard and reminding myself how magical the SOT experience can be when you're seeing something for the first time. Whether that was the adventure of The Shroudbreaker, the puzzle within the Gold Hoarder Vaults, or simply some best practices for efficiency and making sure you don't get caught with your pants down. Seeing that lightbulb flick on as players began to understand things was incredibly satisfying.
One extremely notable bit of feedback for Rare through this experiment is that exactly ZERO times did anyone have any interest (or even awareness, it seemed) in participating in the new content for Season 18. One time, I did poke a crewmate into participating in it. He wanted to do an Order of Souls voyage and we happened to start off at Morrow's Peak. We happened to come across one of the sarcophagi on an island. He was mostly not interested, but I kept hinting that there were candles on it that we could light and that we should see what happens. He wound up having fun, but he almost certainly wouldn't have seen that content had I not poked him a little.
Aside from that, every player - new or seasoned - seemed to have an objective in mind. Whether that was progressing a faction, completing a commendation, or getting their hourglass curse, everyone had an objective of some sort it seemed...and it never once had anything to do with the new content or completing the Season Pass.
That should be eye-opening for Rare for two reasons.
1). The Season model is tired for even mildly experienced players at this point...and newer players seemingly don't give a hoot about it...so who's it for anymore?
2). The new content (at least for this season) is either not prolific enough, not communicated well enough, or just doesn't spark any sort of intrigue. One suggestion might be to bring back those "wake up letters" as you spawn into a tavern. Maybe making people aware of what the new content is or poking them in that direction with those notes right before they set sail might be a decent idea? Idk, but the (skippable) videos at the start menu clearly aren't doing it. Or the content is just not intriguing 😂
Beyond that, I sure do think that Open Crew needs some serious love to provide a better and more consistent experience for players. I'm going to do this again next season and take actual notes on what each session brings, but the number of times that people would immediately leave from the tavern was astounding. Clearly, people are looking to join into a session where something is already happening and don't want to deal with the whole "deciding what to do" situation. There's ways to address that within the pregame menu via filters/preferences and it would cut out a lot of the revolving door of people who just want to be dumped into action.
For any seasoned players looking for a fresh view on the game, I'd encourage some open crew time. It really was fun.
