After some people were making excuses like “Ace was only in Tama’s village” or “Ace didn’t go that deep into Wano Territory”, well turns out he did just that. The dude even fought Kaido
Now Ace going out of his way to try and kill Kaido more than likely means he was frustrated with something Kaido did (perhaps Tama’s situation and Yamato’s/whatever else), hence why it makes absolutely no sense for Marco not to know about “how bad” the situation in Wano was.
998 just made this look worse.