I read or heard somewhere that the monsters in game do not have levels and I don't remember if that's how they were in the I.E. games or not, but wondered is there any way we can distinguish when encountering a monster how hard it will be without having to kill them several times and the bestiary fills itself out? That seems potentially counter productive knowing when to engage in the encounter. Also will the monsters respawn or change in areas or dungeons other than when you change difficulty? Finally, if i change the difficulty do the creatures in the area automatically swap out, or when i reload the area?

I really don't know myself I know I killed everyone in the beta below the town except the last two in the dungeon I let them live in the quest than came back down later all the people I killed respond.

They kind of have levels but they only change when shifting to Path of the Damned difficulty.

 

The types and numbers of monsters change with each difficulty level.

For example easy may have two spiderlings, while normal has 3 spiderlings + 1 spider, hard has 4 spiders and Path of the Damned has 3 spiderlings and 4 spiders which are all a level or two higher.

 

I think you need to reload when you change difficulty to adjust the monsters (not directly tried that) or change to a new map.

Encounters are build around normal difficulty level, and dropping difficulty to easy changes some enemies in encounter to ones that should be easier to deal with, and hard difficulty changes some enemies to ones that should be harder to deal with. Path of damned difficulty puts all enemies  from every difficulty settings to map.

 

Enemies have levels, but they are all predetermined and they don't change during game, so encounter with level 2 monsters have level 2 monsters even if you come across it in late game.

 

There are some ways to determine how difficult monsters are in game

One classification that they seem to use is to have terms that go from soft to hard or maybe from cheap to expensive

wood beetle, stone beetle and andra beetle

Another classification is to give adjective that gives you indication is monster easier or harder than its default version

young wolf, wolf, elder wolf

Another classification is use 'known' specie evolution chains

wurm, drake, dragon 

Then they have monsters with Eora specific names, which gives indication that they are more special enemies

 

Also they seem to go with size matters design, meaning that smaller ones are easier than bigger enemies

Encounters are build around normal difficulty level, and dropping difficulty to easy changes some enemies in encounter to ones that should be easier to deal with, and hard difficulty changes some enemies to ones that should be harder to deal with. Path of damned difficulty puts all enemies  from every difficulty settings to map.

 

Enemies have levels, but they are all predetermined and they don't change during game, so encounter with level 2 monsters have level 2 monsters even if you come across it in late game.

 

There are some ways to determine how difficult monsters are in game

One classification that they seem to use is to have terms that go from soft to hard or maybe from cheap to expensive

wood beetle, stone beetle and andra beetle

Another classification is to give adjective that gives you indication is monster easier or harder than its default version

young wolf, wolf, elder wolf

Another classification is use 'known' specie evolution chains

wurm, drake, dragon 

Then they have monsters with Eora specific names, which gives indication that they are more special enemies

 

Also they seem to go with size matters design, meaning that smaller ones are easier than bigger enemies

 

I like that explanation very much. Very good. +1 for that.