Nothing was "screwed up" Krusty. Practices are just that, practice. Beta frames test the final setup conditions.
You had 4 formal "practice" nights compared to far more days and nights invested in fine tuning things that your practices were a Part of defining.
Some of what occured during your practices showed settings to be too easy, others too hard, that's what they are for.
That's they way things go sometimes. Just because it's not what you expected does not mean that it was wrong.
Most of the settings were the same as practices. The Guns being tougher while the Base Hardness, Downtimes, Bridges, Tents, etc being the same Hardly constitutes "all" of the hardness.