The first place I go to, after getting to Whiterun, is Halted Stream Camp. I cleared it of ore and loot a week ago. It says "cleared" under the name on the map. I just ran past it fighting a dragon, and there were bandits there. And inside the chief bandit was back, all the potions and coin purses had respawned. Mammoth tusks too. No ore though. I know I killed every single thing in and around it before.

What gives?

"Cleared" means you've cleared it once and it's counted towards your overall dungeon clearing stat (I assume). Enemies still respawn though.

Almost all dungeons will respawn enemies after 30 days of ingame time.

Cleared means it's been cleared once. At which point the level of the dungeon gets locked. It can however repopulate, but essentially with the same inhabitants.

Bandits respawn after 10 or 30 days. I believe it is 10 days for a non cleared dungeon and 30 days for a dungeon you have cleared. Or, vice versa.

Remember, the first group thought it was a good place to be, so the next group will think the same thing.

Also, a new patch seems to reset these re-spawns, so they can occur earlier than expected.

Dungeons get locked in level when you discover them, not just clear them.

I found on a couple of Radiant Quests where they put the quest in a dungeon I had cleared. I had two bosses, one was significantly higher in level than the other one.

You don't even have to clear a dungeon to get the cleared flag. It's usually enough to work your way through and meeting some requirement like finishing the end boss.

Imho it should just say "Visited" in stead of "Cleared". (<- you don't actually need to clear it and it doesn't stay cleared.)

But how about loot level? I haven't gotten clear answer on that either on the forums or playing the game

I don't think Loot is set the same way that Enemies are.

Thanks all! doesn't seem like ore respawns though, potions and chest loot and everything else does/

Ore should respawn in 30 days.

I cleared the bandits and their leader from one of the ship wrecks. Later I got a bunty quest for the bandit leader there. Everyone was dead except the leader and he was much more difficult to kill and the treasure chest next to him yielded better leveled items. This would indicate that get a new quest at a pevious location does reset some of the leveling factors.

if you clear a dungeon, it marks it as cleared..but the dungeons respawn enemies and loot..just like in oblivion..

This is why sometimes there are two bosses in a dungeon, one lower level than the other one. It's rare, but it happens. Also, if the Radiant quest had sent you there after 30 game days, the other NPCs would have respawned.

I thought this broke immersion. I have to be killing bandits/foresworn/giants/etc faster then they are recruiting, theres no way they can get that many people so quickly, so in the endgame there would be fewer bandits and the roads would be safer, but it doesn't quite work that way. Also, I think making the roads safer by clearing bandit hideouts would be a good Rp element for the Chivalrous knight.

I don't think it breaks immersion. It's logical to to believe that over time bandits would go back to previous hidding spots. For a short time that area you cleared would be safer, but to think it will always be safe; I don't agree with. There will always be more bandits. Just like life there are always new crimanols.

240 and 720 game hours respectively, IIRC from my CK-diving. What I'd like to see though, would be different respawns. There are a few that respawn differently if you are doing the Civil War questline, but only those directly related to that quest line. And you really have to get the timing exact, otherwise the game just removes one set of nasties and replaces it with another even before you visit. But what I's like to see is more considered respawns. What about: you kill all the draugr in a tomb. After a few days, animals move in. Later on, bandits move in and fight the animals. If it's skeever, the humans win, if it's trolls, maybe not. Than, say, vampire move in, and start feeding. Or maybe necromancers move in, but get kicked out by local guards. You get the idea: what you get would depend on when you revisited, and luck.

I just checked, on my first character, he has existed for 337 days, and has killed 1207 humans. Lets say about 40% of them are bandits (face it, they are the most common human enemy you face, followed by the forsworn) At that rate, they would have to recruit about 1.5 bandits per day, not including the ones that die out from: Exposure, disease, hunger, thirst, in bandit fighting, other adventurers, accidents. They would be constantly finding new bandits on a daily basis, and considering how fast they die out, people would be discouraged from banditry. Also, consider the forsworn, they are native bretons, in order to make a native breton, forsworn have to have kids and wait for them to grow up, a slow process which wouldn't nearly cancle out the rate at which i kill them

I also dont get a cleared tag on ones I have cleared, not sure how the tagging is assigned.

I first thought It was upon your first clearance, then I thought it was when you have completed a quest assigned to the dungeon, but seems pretty hap hazzard for me.