Yeah. Could, at the very least, come up with some sort of warning to say you'll be using your own equipment. Honestly, I liked warband's version more since it was basically a tournament of skill rather than whoever has the best armour wins.
If you want the game to be hard then just stick the difficulty options up. As it is now the only way to get through a tournament without higher end gear is to mooch off teammates and then somehow win the 1v1 at the end. Maybe if you get lucky and get a horse. Seems like melee weapons do very little damage, at least at the start of the game. Ranged weapons seem to do about 5 times as much.