I'm not sure what you're expecting. Individual creatures are tuned around the idea that their level is "worth" an equivalent PC level for a challenging Normal encounter. E.g., a party of five 5th level characters should be reasonably challenged (but ultimately win out) against a party of five 5th level monsters. That's one of the most straightforward ways we can establish a baseline of equivalency for what a creature's level means. On Hard difficulty, the party should be facing superior numbers in terms of overall levels in one of three ways a) more creatures of the same level b) the same number of creatures but some are higher level or c) fewer creatures who are mostly/all higher level. Whether a) b) or c) are used depends a great deal on the individual level and creatures that make sense there. We can't flood a map with creatures if it's cramped. We can't use a higher level companion creature if the jump in levels is too severe (e.g. Wood, Stone, and Adra Beetles all span several levels).
I can personally test things on Hard, as can Bobby and a few other folks, but most of the other devs cannot. Or rather, they wouldn't really get anywhere. If I listened to them for tuning advice, Hard wouldn't be hard at all.
The areas in the Backer Beta are now being tuned for the final game, so the content across the areas is targeted at different levels. You will likely enter Dyrford around 4th level (though you will probably have six characters, so I should add another BB character). Some of the content is tuned for 4th level, but a good amount is tuned for 5th and higher (e.g. the ogre cave). That means if you dive into certain areas with 4th level characters, things are probably going to be tough for you whether you're on Normal or Hard. Easy really is pretty darn easy almost everywhere IME.
Of course I fully intend to play this the way Josh Intended.
All I did was suggest the things to try to do
