The issue you're describing honestly isn't with the Kraken per se., but actually is more a result of the Brigantine (the Sloop and Galleon don't have the issue of their Lower Decks being inaccessible from the Tentacle Wrap), which I will continue to be quite vocal about how poorly designed the Brigantine is … Aesthetically but also in terms of General Placement of immovable utilities and where it sits in terms of Balance.
Something that actually is exemplified more in regards to the Sail Bug that has remained persistent despite being quite openly talked about on the forums a myriad of times since it's common discovery a few months ago.
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Now this obviously turns what is frankly a VERY easy "Boss" Fight, into something that is impossible … at least for Brigantine Crews without support from another Ship.
And let's be honest, most other ships will just avoid the Kraken because the mechanics of Black Water are; well not enjoyable.
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Now a key issue here is that Encounters are Hand-Crafted, with the "Entertainment" or "Threat" basically stemming from the RNG of the various Attacks.
This is esp. true when we're talking about for example Skeleton Marauder Ships., as you can be lucky and they rarely fire; let alone fire a single Cursed Ball; or like I had on Friday, they could be firing near constantly with almost nothing BUT the Cursed Balls leading to being Stun Locked until the Ship Sinks.
Now the difference between a Well Designed "Boss" (be it Elite, Mini or Raid) and a Poorly Designed "Boss"... but this is true for Combat Encounters in General,. is that the Player(s) should always (skill / experience depending) have an opportunity to counter.
I've noted before that in the case of the Megalodon and Kraken, it's the lack of Telegraphed Phases / Moves., that gives you Zero opportunity to react.
Phase 1/
I would instead suggest that a good Telegraph, would be to have all of the Tentacles disappear with the Ship slowly rising out of the Water over say 5-10s... at which point the Tentacles would coil around the ship.
This could be a DPS Check Phase., with the number of Tentacles being Relational to the Ship Size, so:
Sloop = 1 Tentacle
Brig = 2 Tentacle
Galleon = 3 Tentacle
Each Tentacle would be effective the same DPS Check as a Sapphire Statue; but they would all have to be hit with some form of damage indicator (say an ink black / purple series of scars that intensify; again similar to how the statues crack wider-and-wider) to denote how close you are.
The Tentacle Wrap attack, could last for say 30-40s lifting the boat out of Water; and over time cracks the hull every 10s producing a Hole (per Tentacle).
With the challenge of such being to beat the DPS Check to force it to let you go before it does too much damage; but you only fill with Water once the attack finishes and it releases the boat back into the Ocean.
Not beating the Check does more Damage (thus a bit more Brown Trouser time)., while beating the DPS Check results in a rapid crash back down that staggers everyone for a few moments and deals a small amount of damage.
It would make it a more "Interesting" Mechanics, because well now you have to chose between Damage that needs to be healed by Bananas or Damage that needs to be handled via All-hands-on-Deck and Wood.
And thus down to the Crew to Decide what they'd rather deal with.
Phase 2/
In a similar vein another Phase could be that all of the Tentacles raise Upright out of the Water., with a Telegraph of a "Flicker" (think how a Cat tail, once every few seconds rapidly whips at the tip when they're Angry or Agitated) then after say 3-5s slams down on the Deck.
Hitting a Tentacle that's flickering with a Cannon forces it to Recoil (back into the Water)., but hitting one that isn't causes it to instant slam into the boat (along with the one that was already going to).
Each of these could do say 1 Hole of Damage (25-30% Health Damage) each Slam.
With this Phase repeating for 30-40s or until all of the Tentacles have been forced to Recoil.
Phase 3/
A similar Phase could be with the Tentacles all hooked over, but instead of flicking; the telegraph is that they recoil back slowly before whipping across the deck knocking anyone on Deck flying off the ship (and doing minor damage, say 15%).
If Damage is done as it's in the Whip Motion, then this results in disrupting the Whip and the Tentacle flops onto the Deck, with a Damage Consistency Check.
This is where you have to get the timing right between hits, otherwise you cause the Tentacle to Thrash causing a Hull Damage (and Player Damage).
It will naturally recoil after 10s., but the aim will be to land say 5 Consistent Hits each 0.5s apart.
If successful, it recoils violently... if a failure it slinks back into the ocean to reset.
Phase 4/
All the Tentacles disappear with a "Whirlpool" effect around the Boat., after a few second 4 of the Tentacles Rise out of the water and wrap themselves around the Mast (like a Maypole) … with the Boat being slowly pulled down.
This could be a simple case of hitting them enough times causes them to loose their grip... but you will want to do it in a certain order to prevent the boat from being dragged down unevenly (potentially capsizing it).
After said Phase Resupply Barrels could appear in the Water.
With enough Supplies for each Crewmen to individually refill from...
I think the Kraken needs a Phase like this, just for those crews that are running low on supplies when it attacks; as not to make it grossly "unfair" in said scenarios; which from what I've heard it tends to like attacking following the acquisition of large hauls of treasure (often after a Sea Battle).
Not enough to be "Safe" or "Secure" but enough to perhaps survive another Phase or two.
Phase 5/
Tentacles rise up and sway like Snakes., with the trigon tips twitching open/close as the telegraph.
These you have to hit with the Cannon when they Open... these could have one of two attacks., either they Spit Ink (Temporarily Blinding and Damage-over-Time Poison); or they Grab a Crewmen... (for Solo Crews, this latter attack doesn't happen).
The Ink just has to be tanked., while the Grab will essentially result in slowly crushing the Crewmen until enough Damage can be done to force it to let go.
Again this can be subtly based upon the number of crew (as not to make it impossible for smaller crews), but it will move around enough that essentially this has to be accomplished via Firearms than the Cannon.
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Now beyond these Phases, that should probably be randomised in their order; with 3 Phases per Set, and only one of each can occur per Set.
The "Black Sea", i.e. the Ink Filled Ocean; should like the Ink Squirted be a Damage-over-Time, as well as slows you; but it's DoT is lessened within the Ocean rather than Directly.
Once a Set (3 Phases) have been completed., this results in the Kraken (seriously Rare has had enough time to Model the damn thing beyond just the Tentacles); Rising up at once of the sides with it's Tentacles effectively grasping the ship to keep it Stationary.
It then will slowly drag the Ship towards it, until it Chomps the Boat (this does Fatal Damage to any players on the side it bites as well as 6 Hull Damage).
Hitting the both Eyes forces it to open it's Beak / Maw (depends how Rare modelled this, but I like the idea of a Maw with multiple sets of circular rotating Teeth; giving it a "Grinder" appearance... yeah not "Realistic" but still would look Terrifying and Cool) with Weak Points within the Mouth that need to be hit in order to prevent the Attack.
As a note, hitting each Eye speeds up the process of it dragging you in.
This just deflects said attack., in order to actually do Damage to "Kill" it; then you just have to pepper it with Cannons and Shot (or if you're feeling particularly brave... slashing with the Sword :p)
There could potentially be Micro-Phase versions of the Tentacle Phase attacks.
So a Tentacle pops up, gives the Telegraph that distracts you from hitting it for a Moment.
Once you do enough Damage, it retreats back into the Ocean; kicking off another Tentacle phase where you then have go through that again to bring it back to the Surface.
And, yeah you could have 3 of these Surface Phases; each getting slightly quicker (thus a bit harder) before you actually Defeat the Kraken.
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Now to me., that seems like a Fair, Entertaining and Engaging Encounter.
I'd also have it so that each time you kill it; the "Unique" Treasure is a Kraken Eye that you trade various numbers of them to unlock the Kraken Cosmetic Items.
I mean the Cosmetics really need to be tied in some way to completing an associated "Feat"; as it would give them more Value, Weight and Kudos to actually acquiring them.
As opposed to currently where by all it shows is... you earned enough gold and travelled to Morrow Outpost.
Yeah, hardly a tale of Legendary Achievement.
And sure there is the Commendation for doing it... but still that gives you a title; which let's be honest no one really pays attention to., as it's just text; which frankly you only see when you're basically standing 3ft from them (which usually means you're attention is more on the Sword and/or Shot coming your direction :p)
Still it's not just the Kraken that could be reworked to actually be a Tough (but Fair) and Entertaining Encounter. Taking the same principals to the other "Boss" Encounters or even taking cut-down versions of such for the individual "Trash Mobs" you regularly encounter... well it does two things.
It add A LOT of variety and thus keeps things fresh and engaging but also you're teaching the players elements of said tougher fights; preparing them to where said Major / Rare Encounters are more a Test of putting ALL you've learned into practise.
Not doing this means while they are still enjoyable., it's one of those things where you're learning FAR too much FAR too quickly; so you have to essentially gradually gain said knowledge through Trial-and-Error as well as talking to others in the Community., but the flipside is that for that to "Work" it means you have to make them less Rare, just to give people a fair chance to realise that there are patterns and farm them until they can figure out a method to beat them.
I'd much rather they were Rare, until you became a Pirate Legend (as they could act like End-Game / Challenging Content; and perhaps even lead to said Pirates figuring out ways to trigger them deliberately to gain advantages against larger numbers of Ships / Alliances / etc.) with the mechanics of your Journey to Legendary Status being one where you're slowly learning the Mechanics without realising it.
On top of this it also allows such to be staggered in terms of Tiered Difficulty as you rise through the Reputation Ranks; again this would keep the game more interesting with a drip feed of "New" Elements, Tactics, etc. that you're encountering and thus would actually help both Drive and maintain the "Ooh! I wonder what the Next Milestone will bring?!"
Even if the ultimate Cosmetic Rewards are 'meh'., which really they are because they lack rarity and instead are just an eventuality... even then most aren't even exactly visually enticing or interesting enough. There just isn't enough clear variation., to where most players will see something and are like "OMG! I MUST HAVE THAT!"
Yet so too, given how long it takes to grind out Pirate Legend (without exploiting the game mechanics) … you eventually just don't care., and heck the actual Pirate Legend Gear itself isn't even on Display to be a tantalising "Look at what Shiny you can acquire!"
The result is that such is just underwhelming, and unappealing as a whole BECAUSE of the Game Design being little more than "Grind-Grind-Grind" what you do from Day One.
And sure, I understand Rare want the whole concept that everyone is equal., but you also have to keep in mind that only the Hardcore Players (which are a minority, yet also will oft have a very different mindset to playing games over the Casual and Core Audiences) will actually engage in something where there aren't smaller goals / objective to strive for without becoming disinterested.
Why? Well because sure, they might spend say 1-400hrs+ Grinding; at the same time they'll do this during the first Week to Month of release when they're still in the "Honeymoon" Period of the Game Release... go beyond this, and well most people will lose interest. Epic Grinds over a long-period can feel unending or even impossible to ever accomplish … and as noted after you've become a bit bored with the same-old, same-old.
What instead the game needed (from day one) was a way to essentially reduce the progress of the Hardcore (who tend to Power Level)., via diminished returns and instead break up novelty across the Tiers to provide smaller Goals / Objective to where the Short-Term Grind feels achievable and consistent.
A good example would be how Fortnite Seasonal Battle Tiers work.
Sure, you could throw hundred / thousands of hours to hit Tier 100 within a week or two... but doing it via the Battle Pass Objectives, well it provides rapid bursts (via Weekly Challenges) that not only increase said Progress faster than a Singular Grind but also encourage players to try different things.
Land in new Spots, use different Weapons, Explore, etc.
This tends to keep people engaged for most, if not all of a 3 Month Season; as opposed to retaining them for just 2-4 weeks.
