I’ve done 20 battles on the BB DC node in sector 1 (all required for the Ewok feat) and received 4 datacrons.
On the topic of being harder, I’d have to say it’s a no from me. One lesson I’ve learned over the seasons though is that in the first few days and sectors, before you can really get a disk set that can smash anything, is to only use hard counters. Particularly the first in a new cycle, you can sometimes overestimate your teams worth because you’re subconsciously trying on the tactics that worked in the last cycle with the old disks.