Yes people were warned, though probably not with enough time for it to make a difference. Before you scold other folks for not gearing their toons after being told it would be “hard”, what gear level were they before and after that warning? I’ve been able to get dbast and HK up to 11, but the others are stuck at 7/8. And that’s without putting any gear on any other toon for the week or so since the announcement was made. Don’t read this as a complaint about the difficulty—it is what it is. Just don’t scold people for not being better prepared when there wasn’t enough time for that once the announcement came out that it would be harder than the last one.