My settings keep being stuck on Novice Difficulty ?

[Marbleine]

So, the update happened. A lot of rage around it. I do agree that it is such an unnecessary update, but I wasnt raging about it, until this difficulty bug happened to me.

I do have SSE with 41 mods on my PC, and I decided not to play there because I need to wait for new mod updates. So I played on my laptop instead with zero mods. But I found out I couldnt change my settings. It stuck on Novice. No matter what I do, editing the ini files and all that jazz, it always reverts back to Novice. I already reinstalled the game and nothing changed. I have been scouring forums and posts and all I see were people recommending mods to fix it. So my question is... is this actually fixable with no mods or do I need to put my SSE into clean slate, reinstalling/updating all my mods anyway since I need mod to fix this issue ?

Kinda bummed because I just recently went back into playing again and I got this issue.

[jancawa55]

me too

[Wandering Mania]

I didn't even notice this was happening. But it's doing it for me as well. I had it set on 'Legendary' before the update, waited a week for the mod updates I needed, and now it wont get off of 'Novice'. Though I did notice that now I have to save 2ce for it to save once. That's also a "fun" bug with this patch.

Yeah, and people think Bethesda are "fixing bugs" with this update? 'Creating more bugs', is a more accurate phrase.

[Marbleine]

Originally posted by Wandering Mania:

I didn't even notice this was happening. But it's doing it for me as well. I had it set on 'Legendary' before the update, waited a week for the mod updates I needed, and now it wont get off of 'Novice'. Though I did notice that now I have to save 2ce for it to save once. That's also a "fun" bug with this patch.

Yeah, and people think Bethesda are "fixing bugs" with this update? 'Creating more bugs', is a more accurate phrase.

Yeah I dont understand why people are so keen to tell other players that Bethesda "fixed" some bugs in the update. It's clear that the update was solely for testing creation kit/paid mods. Whenever Bethesda fixes Bugs, multiple new bugs will always born.

If you have SkyUI, I think there is a "temporary" mod fix for the difficulty bug tho. Seems like that fixes many mod users.

[RIVEIR]

"it just works" Take the hint novices.... Todd has been watching you play, big brother will decide whats best for you, how you play your game and your overall skill level.

[Wandering Mania]

Originally posted by Marbleine:

If you have SkyUI, I think there is a "temporary" mod fix for the difficulty bug tho. Seems like that fixes many mod users.

Yeah, got it, and it works. Still annoying that I have to save 2ce for it to actually save once though.

[Wandering Mania]

Originally posted by RIVEIR:

"it just works" Take the hint novices.... Todd has been watching you play, big brother will decide whats best for you, how you play your game and your overall skill level.

Those who play on 'Novice' are cowards! Nothing more exhilarating than running through Cold Harbor in the Vigilant mod on Legendary difficulty. 'Elden Scrolls' anyone?

[Robbie Dagger]

Had been battling this for hours until I saw your post from a few hours earlier. Thanks lads

[Interis]

I'm facing the same problem whenever i enable SkyUI. Downloading the mod "MCM difficulty" solved it for me, even though the vanilla settings menu still says i'm playing on novice

[King]

I have the same problem with the difficulty settings, I don't know what's causing it, but I also cannot enable survival mode. The check box is ticked, but nothing happens at all. Since the SkyrimPrefs.ini isn't updating with any of the changes, I suspect the issues are related. Has anyone actually found a fix, or is the game unplayable until Beth fix it, or what? A work around for the difficulty wont change the prefs file from being updated, so I suspect it wont fix the survival mode problem.

[ODevil]

Create or open SkyrimCustom.ini in %HOMEPATH%\Documents\My Games\Skyrim Special Edition.
Enter the following and save:

[GamePlay]
iDifficulty=2

0 is novice. 1 is apprentice. 2 is adept. 3 is expert. 4 is master. 5 is legendary.

Hope this works for you!

[Variouss]

also please check if the file is on read-only state, if it is it wont be able to edit data when changing a difficulty

for interis, what is the name of the mod? if your using SkyUI i suggest SkyUI SE Difficulty Persistence Fix, it fixes the difficulty jumping, locks it in and the vanilla setting menu shows the proper difficulty

if marbleine doesnt mind mods i suggest getting just the basics to keep the vanilla feel, getting SkyUI, the persistence fix and the unofficial patch wont ruin the vanilla experience, however if you really want it to be a bit more challenging i suggest also getting the deadly dragons mod, it makes dragon battles really amusing, and there is a option for keeping it vanilla in the mod aswell, dragons arent easy anymore in late game (im level 101 for now and a dragon gives me a few minutes of fighting now with the mod instead of it being done with in a matter of seconds)

[Wandering Mania]

Originally posted by Variouss:

im level 101 for now and a dragon gives me a few minutes of fighting now with the mod instead of it being done with in a matter of seconds

Well, if you mod the game to be actually 'balanced', with the 'Proper damage scaling' mod(s); It gets extremely easy after level 200. You start 1 shoting Legendary dragons on Legendary difficulty. So the difficulties on this game are a joke anyway.

[Marbleine]

Originally posted by ODevil:

Create or open SkyrimCustom.ini in %HOMEPATH%\Documents\My Games\Skyrim Special Edition.
Enter the following and save:

[GamePlay]
iDifficulty=2

0 is novice. 1 is apprentice. 2 is adept. 3 is expert. 4 is master. 5 is legendary.

Hope this works for you!

As I said on my post, changing the .ini files or creating a new .ini file doesnt do anything. After I launched my game, it reverts back to the lowest difficulty. I already gave up with this issue and decided to install a mod to fix it. I genuinely hope Bethesda will actually try to fix this issue, it reminds me of the issue where people cant access creation club, they cant even download the free cc stuff unless they edit stuff/use mod to fix it. I think Bethesda let the bug fester for years on that one.

[Marbleine]

Originally posted by King:

I have the same problem with the difficulty settings, I don't know what's causing it, but I also cannot enable survival mode. The check box is ticked, but nothing happens at all. Since the SkyrimPrefs.ini isn't updating with any of the changes, I suspect the issues are related. Has anyone actually found a fix, or is the game unplayable until Beth fix it, or what? A work around for the difficulty wont change the prefs file from being updated, so I suspect it wont fix the survival mode problem.

Thank you for this info. I didnt know about the survival mod thing, and I just tried it and it kept turning off for me too. So I think the difficulty and survival mode bug probably is related. Sadly I dont know any kind of fix other than installing mod(s) to fix it.

[Marbleine]

Originally posted by Variouss:

also please check if the file is on read-only state, if it is it wont be able to edit data when changing a difficulty

for interis, what is the name of the mod? if your using SkyUI i suggest SkyUI SE Difficulty Persistence Fix, it fixes the difficulty jumping, locks it in and the vanilla setting menu shows the proper difficulty

if marbleine doesnt mind mods i suggest getting just the basics to keep the vanilla feel, getting SkyUI, the persistence fix and the unofficial patch wont ruin the vanilla experience, however if you really want it to be a bit more challenging i suggest also getting the deadly dragons mod, it makes dragon battles really amusing, and there is a option for keeping it vanilla in the mod aswell, dragons arent easy anymore in late game (im level 101 for now and a dragon gives me a few minutes of fighting now with the mod instead of it being done with in a matter of seconds)

Thanks for the recommendation.
Sadly my problem is (or was) that there is new update, and so I need to wait for mod authors to update the mod first and for me to update my SKSE and all that jazz first to play on my PC. I have a laptop with pure vanilla SSE, and I dont mind playing on there. But I cant change the difficulty on my laptop, meanwhile I still need to wait until some of my mods get updated or I need to purge all my mods and start reinstalling them one by one to avoid crashing on my PC. My problem was never about me not wanting to play vanilla, my problem was that SSE on both my PC and laptop are having temporary issues that can only be fixed with mod(s).

That being said, I ended up giving in to installing mods on my laptop too because I am unable to fix the difficulty problem whatsoever. And now I have just been informed about Survival mode not being able to turn on, which is not a big deal to me but it kinda still grind my gears lmao. Just Bethesda things.