Rant/question: Impossible to solo?

I've been away for quite some time, and since I've come back, I have yet to be able to complete a single quest, regardless of how big or small it is. The game hurls krakens, megalodons, and skeleton ships at you between every island it seems like, and every single time I'm able to get the goods that I'm supposed to haul back to Outpost, it throws multiple of these at me simultaneously. I literally just had to fight off a megalodons and a kraken at the same time, solo, so of course I sunk, and all my stuff lost. Three hours of island hopping to fulfill ONE SINGLE QUEST. What happened to the days where krakens wouldn't attack sloops? How the hell am I supposed to do anything in this game? I can't handle other players, I'm awful at pvp, so I run solo because every group I've ever joined is either little kids who don't know how to play the game or just stand around afk, or people who want to pvp exclusively. I don't have any friends who play, and I keep irregular hours so I can't do any kind of scheduled play with set groups. What the hell am I doing wrong?!