Phasmophobia | v0.10 Update Live

[Moonface]

So after playing the Halloween event yesterday I'd been thinking about it because of how little it incorporates any of the game mechanics, and how it could have been done better without having to change up what was already present:

• Collecting recipe cards from the marked maps remains unchanged, including not having to deal with the ghost at all.
  
• When you get to Maple Lodge Campsite, placing items into the cauldron remains unchanged.
  
• However, once all items are placed into the cauldron, you have to make your way down to the dock for the skull event to trigger. The reason I choose the dock is it's one of if not the furthest spot from the truck, and it's a very open area for viewing reasons to make watching that skull event really cool.
  
• When the skull event is done, a cursed hunt starts except unlike a regular hunt, it doesn't end nor locks the front doors. The challenge is to make it from the dock back to the truck alive. So long as one player makes it, the event is completed.
  

It doesn't change much but I think it would've allowed to have the ghost be included in the event in some way, and with the multiple options to get back to the truck in Maple Lodge you wouldn't have the problem of being bottlenecked down one corridor straight to the ghost. It also means you can't just know the ghost is directly ahead because of the multiple paths, so there's a risk you might go the wrong way towards the ghost. I'm sure the idea could be better than how I pitched it if someone who knows the mechanics inside and out tackled this, but a special hunt where you can't just wait it out by hiding would be unique and make for a really tense finale.


As for Maple Lodge Campsite, I really love it compared to the old map and I think it's easily the best map of its size in the game now. There's a lot to check, but it goes for density over spread so nowhere feels like a dead stretch that serves just to go from one main section to another. My frame rate utterly tanks on the map though, but it might have been from all the Halloween event stuff on the map doing it since it was always worse if the cauldron smoke was in frame and it got really bad when the skull event happened. I'm really happy the console port forced this map to be remade though, because I doubt this map would have ever been addressed otherwise.

[Dragon Lord]

That's a really neat idea, and it would have made a lot of sense considering that putting all the ingredients in the cauldron caused a giant ass skull to appear in the sky and a bloodmoon to appear. You would think that would lead to something really bad happening, such as the ghost becoming perma-mad. It was really weird that this event had no need of the ghost at all despite the game being a ghost hunting game.

My FPS on Maple was very jumpy too, so the map does seem to need a little more optimization, but I agree that it's much better than the original and looks like it'd be one of the more fun maps once you learn it. I believe CJ had mentioned before on Insym's stream that he's been wanting them to redo Maple for a long time now, they just never got around to doing it until now. He said that was the first map they made as a team and he always felt like it was rushed and sloppy.

So I found out some stuff about the achievements that sounds kind of crappy. Mainly one achievement in particular. "Die to a Demon ability within the first minute of a game." This achievement is HORRENDOUS. Not only do you have to win the 1 in however many ghosts there are chance of getting a Demon as your ghost, but then you have to get extremely lucky for it to decide to use its hunt at any sanity ability right away, AND you have to be able to get to it and get killed by it within 60 seconds. On big maps like Prison and Sunny Meadows, this would likely be impossible unless you were lucky enough to get a lobby Demon that decided to do it.

That achievement is a on a level of RNG hell I never expected to have to deal with in this game.

[Moonface]

Yeah, the skull moment is just so foreboding and like you're summoning something, but then nothing happens. If the next event in this game is another case of just find one thing in a map and leave until you have all the knowledge needed for the final map, I'd be tempted to just find a list of what the final map needs online and skip all the time waste of loading into maps to find a thing, unless the game is marking off that you've actually visited and found the item in each map before it allows the final map to work correctly. Do you know DL if this event actually required us to go to all the maps before Maple Lodge or could we have just skipped all of that if we felt like it?

Dang, it's a shame that Demon achievement wasn't in the game like a year ago when we played that one round where I walked into the basement and instantly died to it. That said, in all the times we've played this game that is the only time a Demon has ever ended me in under a minute, so I dread to think how long it will take to try and get this achievement to pop even if you're actively going out of your way to earn it. I guess we should be lucky no other ghosts have a unique kill ability on par to the Demon otherwise they'd all get achievements tied to them too.

[Dragon Lord]

We could have just looked up the ingredients needed for the cauldron and skipped going around finding the recipe cards. I just opted not to do that because I figured it'd take some of the fun out of the event, but yeah, if this year's Christmas event doesn't involve anything with the ghost, we might just do that and get the trophy and be done with it.

There's also a trophy for the Banshee for dying to it when you're the target. The way it's worded makes it sound like you can't get this one playing solo, because then you're just the target by default, which means you have to have at least one other player with you to get it. So this one also has a level of RNG to it, especially if you're playing with three other people and only have a 25% chance to be the chosen target (not sure if multiple people can get the trophy in one game or if it's only for the first person to die to the Banshee).

The Revenant has a trophy for surviving it. Which I believe they mean you have to be seen by it so it gets its super speed boost, and still manage to get away from it and survive the hunt. Should be a little easier with Smudge Sticks, though if you don't know how to navigate in the dark you might be in trouble, because if your flashlight is on when the smudge effect wears off, it'll know exactly where you are and super zoom right to you.

[Moonface]

Ah, yeah that's fair. Until I got into a lobby with you I thought the game only required visiting one of the marked maps and then going to the campsite, rather than doing every map, which was okay but when the card is sitting outside the house on the front lawn is when I started to lose interest in the card collecting. Ignoring the ghost stuff is already iffy, but not even having to actually enter a map to get the card felt like a total waste of even using the map. If there were fewer maps with cards I'd have probably been up for doing a regular game in the map after finding the card but doing that on the amount of maps that we had to visit would've taken up so much time, especially when going into it I expected my load times to be bloated like always yet for once the game actually loaded fast every time for me. I did do a lot of tweaking to my graphic card settings and the game visual settings before we played which might have contributed to that.

Does the Banshee change targets when the current one dies or if the target isn't in the house during a hunt? I'm thinking maybe if the target can be forcibly changed the trophy might not be as hard to get.

Revenant trophy could be easy if custom settings don't disable achievements. Just set ghost speed to as slow as it can be and player to be as fast as it can, and then just wait for RNG to give you a Revenant and stand in an open area on a large map like the school where you can easily see it, it can see you, and you can easily get away.


On the subject of special events, I was curious what the events throughout the history of this game were like since I know I missed a couple, and it's a shame that Easter used to be the only basic event the game would have and that now other events have started to go the same way. It makes me really doubt the Christmas event this year will bring something neat to the table and is just going to be another dull collectathon like everything else this year has been.

For what I'd love the Christmas event to be though, it would be something like maybe a couple of the house maps have a Christmas tree that you have to decorate by finding things around the map, but they're kept inside presents you have to open first. Opening them is a random chance to be the item you need, or a piece of coal, and if it's the coal it could nuke your sanity/trigger a ghost event/trigger a hunt. I guess it could still work if the presents have set contents in whatever places they spawn in the map, but if there was a way to make it that X/Y presents will not have coal but randomize which spawns have them it would keep everyone on their toes by not being able to look up the answers as well as keeping the tension high if everyone dies and has to redo a map. Not sure if it should be locked to a certain difficulty or just be doable on anything except Custom (since I feel Custom would ruin any event idea no matter what you try and do).

[Dragon Lord]

I don't know if that would work against the Revenent, because even at max player speed and slowest ghost speed, I'm fairly certain a Rev can catch up to you since it's the fastest ghost in the game when it has line of sight on you, and with how the Rev works now compared to before, even if you get out of line of sight, it's still going to go where it last saw you and likely pick you up again before you get back out of sight. Plus you'd have to do that while being completely in the dark because if you're holding any electronics that are on, the Rev will instantly know where you are and super speed right to your location.

I would imagine they had the foresight to disable achievements on custom difficulty though, but who knows?

The Banshee will change targets if either a) Its original target is dead or b) Its original target is no longer in the building, however I don't know if the achievement works so that ONLY the original target can get the trophy in a game. Like, if there were four of us playing (You, Shira, Elite and me to make it simple), and we went into a game and it turned out to be a Banshee, and Elite was the original target and dies to it, then he'd get the achievement. Now the question is, if I'm the next target, do I still get the achievement or does it only go to whoever was the original target at the very start of the game? That's something I haven't seen any confirmation on yet. Don't even know if it's possible to get that one solo since you'd be the only target for the Banshee. Might be one that's multiplayer required with at least two people.

EDIT: I just double checked the achievement and it specifically says "Get killed by a Banshee in multiplayer", so that answers one question: No, you cannot get this one solo. So then it just comes down to is it only the very first target who can get it, or can multiple targets get it? If so, does that leave the last personal alive SOL on the achievement then? That'd be kind of irritating if your three friends were able to get it but you couldn't because you lost a 25% roll, a 33% roll and then a 50% roll.

[Moonface]

I don't know if this was intended as a teaser or not but the Weekly Tasks board in the lobby is showing a task that says "Complete objectives on Point Hope", which apparently is the name of a new map coming to the game. Some comments were also saying you can see a lighthouse out of the lobby windows now but I haven't seen a visual to accompany those claims.

The Christmas event is also live as of today I believe, but the patch notes don't specify what the event entails. From what I've managed to find online it seems to be finding snowmen on different maps who are holding an item and then you shoot a dancing snowman?

[Dragon Lord]

The Christmas event involves taking a snowball gun and going around shooting small, dancing snowmen scattered all over the place. Once you've gotten them all on the map, it triggers the ghost to hunt with a special ghost model that has a snowman head on. I'm not sure if correctly identifying the ghost is a requirement to get the check mark for that level though.

It seems like it can be done on any difficulty, which means it might be able to be completed on custom with Friendly Ghost on, so identifying the ghost probably isn't required.

[Moonface]

The Christmas event involves taking a snowball gun and going around shooting small, dancing snowmen scattered all over the place. Once you've gotten them all on the map, it triggers the ghost to hunt with a special ghost model that has a snowman head on. I'm not sure if correctly identifying the ghost is a requirement to get the check mark for that level though.

It seems like it can be done on any difficulty, which means it might be able to be completed on custom with Friendly Ghost on, so identifying the ghost probably isn't required.

Ah, so it does involve a gun. Do you start with it or do you have to find it?

Also the event can be done with Friendly Ghosts enabled according to comments on the games sub-reddit. Seems odd that can be enabled if shooting all the snowmen triggers a hunt unless hunts can happen with Friendly Ghosts on but you just can't die to them?

[Dragon Lord]

The gun starts in the truck with you next to the computer, and you get four of them (not that it matters because they don't run out of "ammo").

The hunt probably doesn't matter in the end. It's probably just something that happens to throw players for a loop (if you don't know it's coming), so friendly ghost being on probably just disables that hunt in the end. I can understand for people who want the trophy, but maybe are too scared to play the game solo and can't get any friends to play with them.

[Moonface]

Ah, I see.

I should be free this weekend (Sunday in particular) to do the event if anyone is interested. I'd also be free Monday if the weekend doesn't work out for everyone.
@Mr EliteL: The game apparently got a lot of performance fixes with the most recent update that adds the holiday event so maybe you'll have some luck with the game now?

[Dragon Lord]

I'd be down. Gotta get the trophy to keep my perfect collection (well, minus apocalypse challenge trophy, but that one is permanent so no rush on it). Either Sunday (morning or night) or Monday (also morning or night) work for me, so just let me know when to show up.

[Mr EliteL]

I haven't been feeling Phasmo as of late, not just because of my laptop's difficulty running it. I'll give it a try Sunday to see if the update will work. Huh April 11th was my last play time.

[Moonface]

I'd be down. Gotta get the trophy to keep my perfect collection (well, minus apocalypse challenge trophy, but that one is permanent so no rush on it). Either Sunday (morning or night) or Monday (also morning or night) work for me, so just let me know when to show up.

I'd say Monday might be better for me at this point due to having a shift today unexpectedly. I definitely don't have anything tomorrow for sure.

I haven't been feeling Phasmo as of late, not just because of my laptop's difficulty running it. I'll give it a try Sunday to see if the update will work. Huh April 11th was my last play time.

If you didn't check the thread yet you might be interested in Lethal Company instead. @ShiraNoMai posted it the other day and it looks like a fun time that's a very different vibe to this game.

[Dragon Lord]

Yeah, tomorrow sounds great. Just let me know whether you want to play in the morning or the evening. I'll be around in the morning at any time, but will need to know if you want to play at night since I'll have to make sure I wake up earlier. Which I don't mind doing, just need to know so I can set an alarm, haha.