I was able to make it a LOT further along this time, but for some reason talking to the bartender in the guild hall about his quest information softlocks the game. Black knight went down MUCH quicker since I was able to level up the crew and buy new gear.
If there's more content in this current release, please let me know once a fix is up for this so I can go do that quest. I like what I'm seeing and I feel that this has some good potential, I just want to see everything there is to see in it.