For a sizable stretch of time, the main topic in our faction’s chat was people hating on the company that owned our territory. When they lost some wars and territory to another faction, some people were upset about the map changing color, sure, but mostly people were happy about it, because they wanted that company to not own the town more than they wanted our faction to own the town. Just an anecdote for you.
At least when another faction’s company is negatively impacting you, you can do something about it. You can try to take their territory, and otherwise engage in pvp against them, even if random fights (not for influence gains) are essentially placebo. Plus, them being a different faction sort of rationalizes and justifies any negative impact they have on you.
But when the source of negative impact on you is a company in your own faction, that’s not really much you can do about that. And the primary source of negative impact for my friends and I has been our own faction. Also, based on some stuff in global and area chat, it seems as though various people in one of the opposing factions feels the same way about the company at the top of their faction. So its not just me and my friends, for sure.
You’re supposed to be incentivized to use towns your faction owns, for various bonuses that come with faction ownership. But if the company is tax crazy, you’re basically incentivized to go help another faction in another town instead of contribute to your own. The company in your town has taken a ridiculous upgrade path that actually prevents you from doing any of your crafting there, so you have to go to an enemy town regardless of taxes. The company that neglects to pay upkeep and lets the town downgrade, is the company with the most territory in your faction.
There’s a number of negative mechanical effects companies in your own faction can have on you, and you can’t do anything about it. You can’t even refuse to help in war, because it doesn’t matter, they don’t need you to. They can field the 50 man team on their own.
Additional, with the wars: The enemy faction is just the enemy faction. The company on your side controlling the war are the ones who deny you the ability to partake in that part of the game. That aspect of things may be less of a direct mechanical impact, and more of an emotional one, but the fact remains you have an extra reason to dislike your faction in the war that doesn’t apply to the enemy.
The innability to actually do anything about problem groups in your own faction is certainly a huge part of this. It amplifies the sensation of anything they do to negatively impact you. But regardless of what path causes one to arrive at the endpoint of feeling like their main enemy is in their own faction, that’s not a sensation one should have in a game that’s supposed to be about factions fighting each other.