So I took a look into the user.settings and found out that the difficulty lvl is set to 4 which would mean the hardest difficulty, right? But I know that I set it to norma, which would be 2 as it was in the user.settings before I started any play. Can someone elaborate?

P.S.: there is no permadeath, so it is definitely not the hardest difficulty.

Strange,well you could change the number and see what happens.Can't find it in my settings.
Can post a pic?

That's how the lines look, when I open user.settings in the Documents folder:

[Gameplay]
AutomaticFinisherEnabled=false
Difficulty=4
HudTutorialEnabled=false
[LevelOfDetail]

And I couldn't find anything about difficulty in all the other inis, so this must be the one that sets difficulty, right? But I have a hard time believing that I'm playing on the hardest mode.

there is no longer a permadeath mode and if you did not change it in the game settings, you might have overwritten it by trying some user.ini from the web? you know to enhance the game a little and whatnot?

I am playing on the highest difficulity aswell and I agree, it's not that hard. All you gotta do is play with the rules, dodge and evade the attacks and you are good to go.... tbh I checked a few times during my current playthrough if it really is the highest difficulty, because it felt somewhat easy....

I would never use some ini from the internet. So this can't be it. Good to know that there's no permadeath anymore.
I'll start a new game on the lowest and one on the hardest mode and will take a look if anything changes in the ini.

My difficult in-game is set to the maximum allowed, yet my user.settings says it's 1. Don't think that ini setting is controlling the difficult at all.

Okay found mine:
[Gameplay]
Difficulty=2
[LevelOfDetail]
SwarmHideDistance=200
DecalsHideDistance=30
DimmerHideDistance=60
DynamicDecalsHideDistance=20
StripeHideDistance=60
That's set at normal play.

mine is on 4 aswell, and I selected Deathmarch

[Gameplay]
Difficulty=4
[LevelOfDetail]
SwarmHideDistance=400
DecalsHideDistance=160
DimmerHideDistance=120 you are looking at the user.settings.back, although you gotta take a look in the user.ini (or simply user without ending, depending on your settings) by the way, take a look at the user.ini (or just 'user') and there you find another difficulty setting

here is mine for example

[Gameplay]
Difficulty=4
[LevelOfDetail]
SwarmHideDistance=400
DecalsHideDistance=160
DimmerHideDistance=120


EDIT: my bad it's user.settings or user.settings.back not the user.ini

There is no file named user.ini. Neither in the game folder nor in the Documents folder. Neither is there a file named just user. Where did you find it?
All files containing user end with .settings.

Yeah, I also have no idea where that user.ini is located at? I have no such file. Are you guys playing the GOG version?

let's assume we have endings shown within the OS, so it's user.settings and there is also a user.settings.bak
not user.ini (my bad there) and I am refering to the .settings not the .bak

and I am playing via GOG launcher and the files are located within my document folder under The Witcher 3

That's the file I was talking about all along ;)
I installed 1.05 and took a look at the options menu. Now there is a slider for difficulty. It was set to normal despite the fact that difficulty was to 4 in .settings. I moved the slider to the right and the game got noticeably harder and way more fun now as I now have to use potions, bombs and oils to survive.
Looked into .settings again, nothing changed, difficulty is still set to 4. But when I move the slider ingame and close it, the difficulty now changes in .settings too. Strange.

and what does it say in the user.settings.bak? does it change there?

.bak files are backups of previous file versions, the game doesn't use it for anything.

all right, thanks for clearing things up