Chagning game save to edit or delete Hearthfires DLC data

[Lemo 'nade]

Does anyone know how?

I want to undo the current state of the house by any means, be it deleting a wing of the house, reverting back to a small house, deleting the entire house or even resetting the whole DLC from my game save

I cannot disable my Hearthfires DLC, save and re-enable it as I have around 80 mods and no clue which ones depend of this DLC but if I try it, the game crashes on the main menu screen so I'm guessing it's because of mod dependancies

I do have TESV ESS editor to edit the save but I cannot figure out what any of the content of my save means and there's at least 200 things so going one by one is not an option

[every1hasnames]

im pretty sure its not possible bro. pretty sure once you save you save. that information is baked into your save.



and im 99 percent positive trying to go into the files and deleting any relevant coding in your saves related to hearthsfire in an attempt to start it over in your save is only going to end with your save not working or crashing or general bad times.




I suggest instead of going through all that only to end up with a game thats broke. instead just look on nexus for a house building mod. Plunty of them.


theres even ones where you can build entire villages. they are better anyways.

[Alex]

Uninstalling any big mod is sure to ruin your save, but to disable a DLC is even worse, since the Unofficial patch depends on it as well. So, no, there's no way to reset a house. And if you realize that you have no idea how to edit a save, then it would be better not to attempt it.

[smr1957]

You cannot do so - it will break your game (well, you can, the same way you can drive a car at 200 into a brick wall - and with the same expectation of outcome). In fact, the vast majority of mods cannot be removed mid playthrough, and there is no known way of editing a save and its contents and succeed. For full information on this topic, see the following:

You CANNOT Remove Mods Mid-Playthrough - https://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/1495615865205745360/
(from PINNED TOPIC Helpful Links and References, Section 5, General Troubleshooting)

Your only option is to start a new game, and if you do not wish Heartfire DLC, disable it before you start (and the same goes for any mod you would not want to use, as per the above linked topic post).

[Lemo 'nade]

Originally posted by Alex:

Uninstalling any big mod is sure to ruin your save, but to disable a DLC is even worse, since the Unofficial patch depends on it as well. So, no, there's no way to reset a house. And if you realize that you have no idea how to edit a save, then it would be better not to attempt it.

Worst thing that could happen is the game failing to load said save, there's no problem unless I overwrite the save that I edit instead of saving as a new one, so, no problem

Originally posted by smr1957:

You cannot do so - it will break your game (well, you can, the same way you can drive a car at 200 into a brick wall - and with the same expectation of outcome). In fact, the vast majority of mods cannot be removed mid playthrough, and there is no known way of editing a save and its contents and succeed. For full information on this topic, see the following:

You CANNOT Remove Mods Mid-Playthrough - https://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/1495615865205745360/
(from PINNED TOPIC Helpful Links and References, Section 5, General Troubleshooting)

Your only option is to start a new game, and if you do not wish Heartfire DLC, disable it before you start (and the same goes for any mod you would not want to use, as per the above linked topic post).

I've read about how impossible it is to remove mods mid-game but only once did I have a problem with that, which I fixed using Save Game Script Cleaner, lost count of how many I uninstalled mid-playthrough

Originally posted by every1hasnames:

im pretty sure its not possible bro. pretty sure once you save you save. that information is baked into your save.



and im 99 percent positive trying to go into the files and deleting any relevant coding in your saves related to hearthsfire in an attempt to start it over in your save is only going to end with your save not working or crashing or general bad times.




I suggest instead of going through all that only to end up with a game thats broke. instead just look on nexus for a house building mod. Plunty of them.


theres even ones where you can build entire villages. they are better anyways.

True but I wanted to make my life a little easier by just using the DLC ones

[Lemo 'nade]

I actually achieved what I wanted... but I also suspect that this may lead to some weird stuff down the line and I don't want to troubleshoot it whenever it comes up, I just want to play, so I'll just document my findings for someone else to keep trying if they wish, as from what I read on google, this may save some time to some people

(I included a TLDR of the steps taken at the end of the comment)

Instead of using the previously mentioned program I tried using Save Game Script Cleaner and I actually managed to make my house dissappear and turn the plot back into a clean slate by opening Save Game Script Cleaner, loading my save, going to Mod Editor, selecting HearthFires.esm and deleting all forms, trying to use any of the save cleaning options resulted in crashes, trying to manually manipulate variables also resulted on crashes and is tedious... although I did find that the Hearthfire related variables (or whatever these folder-like things are...) start with DLCHouse

So, after this the house actually dissappeared but there was no dialog for the jarl to let me purchase the plot, so I opened the console to force it by doing 'setstate byohhousefalkreath 100' (the middle word is just the id of the quest that controls the falkreath house)

When I forced the plot purchase quest to start and I went back to the house, the carriage I previously bought was already there even though there was no house (or housecarl, probably the housecarl was still inside the now dissappeared house although it's possible the instance got deleted, didn't check)
When I created the garden using the workbench the exact same plants were already planted
When I created the small house and entered it, it was actually a small empty house but it had a chest so I'm guessing that each time you add a room, the door to the inside is changed for one that teleports to a different map and that each map points to the same containers so as to keep them consistent whenever the house is changed
Based on the fact that after some digging I found a few lists of

TLDR steps to follow:

If you want to restart Hearthfire DLC but are unable to disable the esm file without crashing your game:
(I must warn you, I have not tested further than creating the small house so anything past that point is uncharted territory and although it's probably fine)

1. Download Save Game Script Cleaner
   
2. Open it up and click 'Open' at the top-right corner
   Your save file location is on Documents/My Games/skyrim/save
   
3. One of the buttons at the top says 'Mod editor', click it
   
4. On the list at the left, find and check 'HearthFires.esm', should be around the top
   
5. Click on 'Delete selected mod forms'
   
6. At the top-right corner click 'Save as' and save the file on the save folder, name won't matter as long as you don't overwrite anything
   
7. Open the console and run a command to force the quest state of the house you want to give you the house
   for the Falkreath house the command is setstate byohhousefalkreath 100
   Whiterun is setstate byohhousehjaalmarch 100
   Morthal is setstate byohhousepale 100
   
8. Start building your house from scratch

I actually stopped here but in case you decide to move on

Possible fixes to possible bugs and general problems:

If you can't find your steward, you'll have to search the internet for its id and send these commands on console:
prid <NPC Id>
moveto player

If that doesn't work I suggest you load a previous save, open the console, click on the steward write down the id that pops up at the center of the screen and use it as his id on the previous command

If that also doesn't work you can actually run 'player.placeatme <NPC id> 1' to instantiate the NPC at your position (may be another command, the idea here is that you need to spawn a new clone of that npc), although it probably won't be your steward as you're just cloning him, if that's the case I hope you can appoint a new steward, if not you'll have to check where or how an NPC is marked as a steward and reset whatever is responsible for that so that you can select a new one, shouldn't be too hard as I saw a few console commands that allow you to dismiss your steward, search it up

Before adding any furnishings to new wings, check that the new wings empty, if they're not, go in and disable one by one each piece of furniture or you're possibly going to have a mess

These possible problems are why I didn't keep at it, enough digging for me, I'll just live with the consequences of Bethesda's poor play-testing
It's been years and we still don't have an easy way of even restarting the whole house, funny if not sad

k im bored bye

[every1hasnames]

Originally posted by IronH3avenZ:

I actually achieved what I wanted... but I also suspect that this may lead to some weird stuff down the line and I don't want to troubleshoot it whenever it comes up, I just want to play, so I'll just document my findings for someone else to keep trying if they wish, as from what I read on google, this may save some time to some people

(I included a TLDR of the steps taken at the end of the comment)

Instead of using the previously mentioned program I tried using Save Game Script Cleaner and I actually managed to make my house dissappear and turn the plot back into a clean slate by opening Save Game Script Cleaner, loading my save, going to Mod Editor, selecting HearthFires.esm and deleting all forms, trying to use any of the save cleaning options resulted in crashes, trying to manually manipulate variables also resulted on crashes and is tedious... although I did find that the Hearthfire related variables (or whatever these folder-like things are...) start with DLCHouse

So, after this the house actually dissappeared but there was no dialog for the jarl to let me purchase the plot, so I opened the console to force it by doing 'setstate byohhousefalkreath 100' (the middle word is just the id of the quest that controls the falkreath house)

When I forced the plot purchase quest to start and I went back to the house, the carriage I previously bought was already there even though there was no house (or housecarl, probably the housecarl was still inside the now dissappeared house although it's possible the instance got deleted, didn't check)
When I created the garden using the workbench the exact same plants were already planted
When I created the small house and entered it, it was actually a small empty house but it had a chest so I'm guessing that each time you add a room, the door to the inside is changed for one that teleports to a different map and that each map points to the same containers so as to keep them consistent whenever the house is changed
Based on the fact that after some digging I found a few lists of

TLDR steps to follow:

If you want to restart Hearthfire DLC but are unable to disable the esm file without crashing your game:
(I must warn you, I have not tested further than creating the small house so anything past that point is uncharted territory and although it's probably fine)

1. Download Save Game Script Cleaner
   
2. Open it up and click 'Open' at the top-right corner
   Your save file location is on Documents/My Games/skyrim/save
   
3. One of the buttons at the top says 'Mod editor', click it
   
4. On the list at the left, find and check 'HearthFires.esm', should be around the top
   
5. Click on 'Delete selected mod forms'
   
6. At the top-right corner click 'Save as' and save the file on the save folder, name won't matter as long as you don't overwrite anything
   
7. Open the console and run a command to force the quest state of the house you want to give you the house
   for the Falkreath house the command is setstate byohhousefalkreath 100
   Whiterun is setstate byohhousehjaalmarch 100
   Morthal is setstate byohhousepale 100
   
8. Start building your house from scratch

I actually stopped here but in case you decide to move on

Possible fixes to possible bugs and general problems:

If you can't find your steward, you'll have to search the internet for its id and send these commands on console:
prid <NPC Id>
moveto player

If that doesn't work I suggest you load a previous save, open the console, click on the steward write down the id that pops up at the center of the screen and use it as his id on the previous command

If that also doesn't work you can actually run 'player.placeatme <NPC id> 1' to instantiate the NPC at your position (may be another command, the idea here is that you need to spawn a new clone of that npc), although it probably won't be your steward as you're just cloning him, if that's the case I hope you can appoint a new steward, if not you'll have to check where or how an NPC is marked as a steward and reset whatever is responsible for that so that you can select a new one, shouldn't be too hard as I saw a few console commands that allow you to dismiss your steward, search it up

Before adding any furnishings to new wings, check that the new wings empty, if they're not, go in and disable one by one each piece of furniture or you're possibly going to have a mess

These possible problems are why I didn't keep at it, enough digging for me, I'll just live with the consequences of Bethesda's poor play-testing
It's been years and we still don't have an easy way of even restarting the whole house, funny if not sad

k im bored bye

theres a reason theres no way to restart the whole house. because its not necessary. name one quest in the entire game where you can restart it after finishing.


name one instance. just one. ill wait.
just because you would like something done doesnt mean it should be done.



most people dont want to restart the house. most people barely care about hearthsfire at all.most people build it once in 1 play through to check it out. and dont care about it again.


being able to restart it wouldnt make people care. people like the idea of building a house in the game but they dont care about hearthsfire itself.



which is why people modded the game so you can build actual buildings and concepts added to it to make it interesting for people. because overall hearthsfire was a dissapointment. like the concept hated the dissapointment of it.





download a mod that has you build an actual interesting home or homes or villages. with mechanics actual interesting mechanics.

[Avrie]

Of course if you're dead set on restarting the house, there is one way guaranteed to work in all cases. And even SMR will attest to this procedure's efficacy reliability, and safety.

Wait for it

Restore a save you made before adding any of the additions, or before building the house if that suits you better. You loose only time. You don't break all sorts of scripts, and you don't corrupt your save file (Which you did ... You're hosed, and you haven't figured that out yet. Give it time, You'll learn)

I wish you luck, but nothing you said to do is safe, wise, or has even the remotest chance of success. All you did is break your game... well, not yet, but the fuse it lit and there's no way to put it out. Enjoy the cart ride if you don't restore to a save before you did any of this.

[Lemo 'nade]

Originally posted by every1hasnames:

Here's the thing: I really don't care for building, at all
I just want a place to store stuff and I don't want to go shopping for one on the internet but the default houses are too small and don't have containers ...and I'm tired of spending countless hours with Jaxonz positioner editing them

The feature of demolishing a wing is important since from a design standpoint the "options" are trash, 3 of the options to add to the house are already included in the Main Hall but there is no way of knowing until you furnish it, which takes ages

Originally posted by smr1957:

Dope, well, I don't see many alternatives.
If I built my house all at once and ran off to actually play the game while the furniture spawned in, I'm screwed
Out on the internet you can find lots of posts asking for this, the answer is always "don't touch it, light your progress on fire and move on or build another freaking house, just in case, you know?" and the occasional "disable Hearthfire" which I can't follow, so there is no alternative
Now this is programming, not black magic and not chemistry, there is an algorythm to everything and it can be reverted if you know it, at least I tried

Originally posted by Avrie:

No worries, I have backups of everything, still, I'll just grab a save from before I made the house and be done with it since I want to play skyrim, not debug it or develop mods
I wasn't expecting sucess at all from this, just testing and finding out whatever worked expecting to eventually come to a proper fix, thanks though

[Lemo 'nade]

Originally posted by every1hasnames:

You keep missing the point
I don't want to go surf the web for a modded home, I don't want a perfect fit, beautiful place or whatever, I do not care about all the mods there are, I don't want to build, I just want to store stuff and I like the Hearthfire homes

It's not a matter of an easy fix, quick fix or whatever, it's a matter of not losing all progress made from when I started and this ridiculous oversight has bugged me for years

Boo hoo, I tried editing my save without getting hired by Bethesda and studying the source code for weeks, I'm such a horrible person
Grow up mate, modding started with trial and error and reverse engineering, half the mods in existance are almost glued together with poor coding and high hopes

[every1hasnames]

Originally posted by IronH3avenZ:

Originally posted by every1hasnames:

You keep missing the point
I don't want to go surf the web for a modded home, I don't want a perfect fit, beautiful place or whatever, I do not care about all the mods there are, I don't want to build, I just want to store stuff and I like the Hearthfire homes

It's not a matter of an easy fix, quick fix or whatever, it's a matter of not losing all progress made from when I started and this ridiculous oversight has bugged me for years

Boo hoo, I tried editing my save without getting hired by Bethesda and studying the source code for weeks, I'm such a horrible person
Grow up mate, modding started with trial and error and reverse engineering, half the mods in existance are almost glued together with poor coding and high hopes

im not missing your point. your point is stupid. dont get the ♥♥♥♥ confused.


sorry its stupid that you think they should have made it so you can restart it it. its stupid.
its also stupid after people told you would break your game you did it anyways.


Its stupid that you dont want to spend five minutes on nexus for your solution instead you spent hours doing what you did and breaking the game waisting all that time.


Its stupid. I was saying it in a nice manner is all. being polite about it.



this isnt an oversight.



they didnt make it so you can restart hearthfire because they didnt need to. Its not necessary. You wanting it does not make it necessary. It doesnt make it that the devs should have made it that way.




we are also not talking about modding a new game where the information is new.


the information that you cant delete this ♥♥♥♥ or you will break your game has been known for an extremely long time. and even after people told you in this topic you still continued to try and break your game.


part of being a grown up is listening to those that know what they are talking about. and utilizing facts that has already been learned.


You didnt.



and i get it you want containers. these buildable mods on nexus has even more containers. part of being a grown up is also accepting what people you have asked for help froms advice.



who is the child in this situation. the answer is you. so you may want to refrain from telling people to grow up.

[Lemo 'nade]

Originally posted by every1hasnames:

Originally posted by IronH3avenZ:

Dude, you truly are a piece of work
I'm a programmer, I know my ♥♥♥♥ and I know the risks.
I took the necessary precautions and went ahead while I asked for tips from experienced people not for people that treat stuff as taboo. My "game" was never at risk, it was just my save, just because you're a scaredy cat, afraid of ever touching technical stuff, doesn't mean we're all as frail as you

It's not that I don't want to spend the time, it's that I don't want modded homes
I fail to understand what part of "I don't want modded homes" you don't get

It's not that I think this feature should exist, I was surprised this wasn't an option as so were tons of other people on the internet, trying a quick google search says it all, I'm not about to discuss game design with a dunce that claims that something as subjective as not wanting modded homes is stupid, specially when the game already has homes

And again, I know my stuff, if you're treating game saves as a no-go that's your problem

[smr1957]

You obviously don't know your stuff - and you certainly don't know Skyrim, and that's the last I'm going to say about any of this - you have the definitive information contained in links that have been posted. Anyone who chooses to disregard those who have far more experience than they in a particular field, simply is not worth wasting time on.

[Alex]

Originally posted by smr1957:

You obviously don't know your stuff - and you certainly don't know Skyrim, and that's the last I'm going to say about any of this - you have the definitive information contained in links that have been posted. Anyone who chooses to disregard those who have far more experience than they in a particular field, simply is not worth wasting time on.

Oh, well, just let him do that weird stuff with his save. It'll be a good learning experience when it inevitably becomes unusable afterwards.

[every1hasnames]

Originally posted by IronH3avenZ:

Originally posted by every1hasnames:

Dude, you truly are a piece of work
I'm a programmer, I know my ♥♥♥♥ and I know the risks.
I took the necessary precautions and went ahead while I asked for tips from experienced people not for people that treat stuff as taboo. My "game" was never at risk, it was just my save, just because you're a scaredy cat, afraid of ever touching technical stuff, doesn't mean we're all as frail as you

It's not that I don't want to spend the time, it's that I don't want modded homes
I fail to understand what part of "I don't want modded homes" you don't get

It's not that I think this feature should exist, I was surprised this wasn't an option as so were tons of other people on the internet, trying a quick google search says it all, I'm not about to discuss game design with a dunce that claims that something as subjective as not wanting modded homes is stupid, specially when the game already has homes

And again, I know my stuff, if you're treating game saves as a no-go that's your problem

no that would be you programmer. anyone can have that title bro. doesnt mean you actually know what your doing and in this case you have proven it.




theres a difference between being able to go into files and delete ♥♥♥♥, or even place files or even write coding. and actually knowing what doing so does. actually knowing what you can and cant do.




and what you cant do is delete this ♥♥♥♥ after you already saved. not a mod like hearthsfire.


because it is baked into your save. you deleting anything related to that and when you play yoru game. your save that has hearthfire content saved in it. the game will ♥♥♥♥ up. because it will look for that content and it wont find it because you deleted it. and the only result of the game not finding it. is crashing, corrupt save general bad times.




and that is something that you cant change.


no you dont know your stuff. If you did you would have never tried this in the first place. Because you would have already known the outcome of doing such a thing.

[Lemo 'nade]

Originally posted by smr1957:

Over the years I've found the topic of removing mods mid-game everywhere and how game breaking it is, even though I've gone through probably thousands of mods and all my saves still work, they may bloated or not but the only crashes I ever got were from incorrect loadorder or incompatible mods
In the linked post you mention:

Originally posted by smr1957:

(PURE MESH/TEXTURE REPLACEMENT MODS ARE SAFE TO REMOVE. SO ARE MODS USING VANILLA ASSETS AND SPAWNS.)

That's closer to the truth
The thing is you can't "bake" stuff, this is just a simplified term to denote how hard it is to undo the thing.

I do not intend on spending thousands of hours understanding thousands of lines, searching for the right tools or developing my own to then compare save data to come to a fix, therefore I gave up on this, although I was aiming for a working fix not a perfect clean out-of-the-factory fix
Even though I do not know the inside of skyrim, with enough trial, error and research there is always a workaround and that's what I attempted

You claim I don't know my ♥♥♥♥ or something, yet my saves only broke once in 11 years, I fixed it and my current save is still safe, my game is working, etc, I'd say I'm doing pretty good

Originally posted by Alex:

If it does, I'll fix it, just like I've done before

Originally posted by every1hasnames:

Ever heard of the word "tinkering"? it's a nice word to describe a nice way of learning, as long as you don't break anything. I didn't. My save is still safe and sound along with my game

I was not trying to delete hearthfire, I was trying to reset a partial status of a house, the complete house or the data that tracked the status of the mod, whatever came first and whatever I could achieve, I've read about people disabling hearthfire and tried that approach first, was unable to trigger whatever controls the first time setup of a mod and decided that I'd be ages trying to understand all the info related to the status of the house and trying to figure out the data I should keep, delete or edit

While I at least tried you claimed it was impossible, I just claimed I don't know of a way but was at least trying to find one while you guys went "the power of christ compells you" on me, if people like you or the other dude would ever be listened, there would be not even be a SKSE

I knew it was possible this was probably a time sinkhole but I hoped I would come to find some way of tricking the system into resetting itself or people that would point me in that direction and bear with hearthfire eventually doing something wonky and me having to fix it

But honestly, I was also trying to get this problem out there once again, under the hope that someone with better knowledge would pinpoint an alternative or a possible time-effective approach, still am