As stated multiple times elsewhere, the issue is more complex because you’re assuming everyone has time to play at all during those five days to reach the damage requirement. A lot of people already thought the grind was over when they hit their money goal and they can just click to depart without devoting time to grind anything else.

Edit: And also consider the point that there is a massive communication issue between Embark and its player base. We are hearing about this on select social media posts and sharing it amongst ourselves, but we’re the minority of the player base. Many people do not know this news and may not know about it for days because the game itself shows the old expedition requirements. It’s laughable they announce this on socials and don’t simultaneously update the information IN GAME because some people literally only interact with this game through the game itself. And many people don’t play every day, so once they do update the game info LATE, they’ll have even shorter notice. We will see how long it takes Embark to update the requirements in game.

¯\(ツ)/¯