Nearly impossible for small companies

[LilBeans 0]

For a smaller company it is rather challenging to progress through the game. First there is the grind, which can easily be fixed by upping the rates. Secondly, it’s far too hard to get past the beginner stage. The larger companies will keep pushing you down every time you get just a little further. It sucks because it’s not easy to get into a large company and there is nothing but building up for the smaller companies. 

[Slash78 95]

Put most of my time in the game on a RP server, but since Saturday night I've been playing on the official server.  It seems like I've been getting more grief from small companies that large ones.  Now a fairly large one did sink one of my Sloops at sea, thinking I was someone who raided some resource shack for something.  I saw a brig start to chase me and I started to run and it wasn't until I was bobbing in the water did the guy tell me why he blasted me.  Wrong place at wrong time?  But other than that, it's been smaller groups blowing my shit up while I am away.  I even built a pair of ship yards on land from a top 10 company and it was smaller groups doing stuff.  I came back to my spot to see a Galleon leaving (from the land owner) and while surveying the damage I noticed the brig that sunk my ramshackle sloop and newest Schooner was nearly next to them down in the water.  Of all my crafting stations only my smithy was left and someone had piled some of my resources in it (that I had locked in resource box that was gone).

If you just had to worry about top companies and other large companies, things would be manageable.  The problem is you have to worry about every petty little asshat and his troll buddies just looking to shit on someone and ruin their day.