I'm a sloop player and I play alone or with a friend. Since the season 3 update, which I've really enjoyed otherwise, I think Rare has increased the rate of enemy spawn by a lot! To the point that I often spend something from 30 minutes to an hour on islands fighting off enemies because I get little to no downtime to do what I came to do.
This means that I often get lots of good loot, but I think it also extends my play sessions a little too much for my taste because I don't feel anymore in control of what I am going to do on my visit to an island. Accidents or unplanned moments can create exciting gameplay (e.g. Kraken, or you find an ashen key captain, or you find a mission for a secret treasure and it's exactly on the way you were planning to go, you meet other players, etc.) but I think that if maybe the balance was a little on the "Sea of thieves is a chill game" before, now it's more "SoT is a little FOMO inducing".
To the point that to avoid enemies I had to leave behind many average skulls in my voyages because they weren't worth the trip from island to ship and risking to face again other captains or those new enemy types that can drop gems, and I didn't stop to ship relics and similar because I felt I was getting TOO sidetracked
