Do leeches even exist? (also random lantern question)

[DreamMasterFTW]

I've done the ruined forest map (or whatever it's called) forever now. Me and my friend have not once come across them, even thought it STILL shows them on the custom screen as a potential unlock. Are we just missing something?

Random question, does ANYONE use the lantern? Like does it have any use other than like maybe dead ends? I've just never found a good use for it when the flashlight is so much better. Heck there are some maps where I don't even need to turn my light on!

[Amallah]

(tl;dr at the bottom if you don't want the long explanation explaining the "why")

Leeches can spawn on Dead Forest when there's at least one other monster present. I'm not sure what size/difficulty you've been trying, but doing smaller, easier cases (very small easy, for example) ultimately gives a lower chance at encountering them. Regularly generated cases have a cap of 5 monsters that can spawn, and easy cases will never have more than 3 monsters spawn depending on what type of monsters are picked by the generator.

Each monster is assigned a hidden "point" value when we first create them that assigns their difficulty. Monsters like Smiley, Centipede, Crypt Zombies, Leech, and others are assigned the lowest difficulty considering they're fairly easy to deal with alone, meaning they can spawn with multiple other monsters assuming it doesn't exceed 5 monsters.

Now, when it comes to Dead Forest, several of the monsters in its pool have higher point values compared to some others, with Hunter Pigman and Trench/Crypt Stalker being two examples of that. Because some monsters have higher point values, it's harder to pair them with other monsters for cases that are marked with easier difficulties, so you're more often going to see them paired with more monsters at higher difficulties, especially on smaller mazes.

TL;DR Leeches still exist on Dead Forest, they're harder to find on easier difficulty mazes, try small mazes with a higher difficulty

Edit: forgot to reply to the lantern bit, sorry! Yeah the lantern is very much a range vs radius debate. I actually see a lot of people on streams prefer the lantern during the story mode playthrough (it's particularly helpful in the Chapter 3 house for first-timers to see the keys on surfaces higher up than the flashlight). Most people in Case Files though tend to prefer having the range though to see further down hallways, so it's very much a preference thing.

[DreamMasterFTW]

Originally posted by Tanner (Amallah):

(tl;dr at the bottom if you don't want the long explanation explaining the "why")

Leeches can spawn on Dead Forest when there's at least one other monster present. I'm not sure what size/difficulty you've been trying, but doing smaller, easier cases (very small easy, for example) ultimately gives a lower chance at encountering them. Regularly generated cases have a cap of 5 monsters that can spawn, and easy cases will never have more than 3 monsters spawn depending on what type of monsters are picked by the generator.

Each monster is assigned a hidden "point" value when we first create them that assigns their difficulty. Monsters like Smiley, Centipede, Crypt Zombies, Leech, and others are assigned the lowest difficulty considering they're fairly easy to deal with alone, meaning they can spawn with multiple other monsters assuming it doesn't exceed 5 monsters.

Now, when it comes to Dead Forest, several of the monsters in its pool have higher point values compared to some others, with Hunter Pigman and Trench/Crypt Stalker being two examples of that. Because some monsters have higher point values, it's harder to pair them with other monsters for cases that are marked with easier difficulties, so you're more often going to see them paired with more monsters at higher difficulties, especially on smaller mazes.

TL;DR Leeches still exist on Dead Forest, they're harder to find on easier difficulty mazes, try small mazes with a higher difficulty

Edit: forgot to reply to the lantern bit, sorry! Yeah the lantern is very much a range vs radius debate. I actually see a lot of people on streams prefer the lantern during the story mode playthrough (it's particularly helpful in the Chapter 3 house for first-timers to see the keys on surfaces higher up than the flashlight). Most people in Case Files though tend to prefer having the range though to see further down hallways, so it's very much a preference thing.

Thanks for the detailed answer. Yeah when me and my friend play (since we normally just duo when we decide to play the game) and we get the map, it's usually at medium+ and hard+ difficulty. Idk if it scales per level, but we rarely get easy/very easy difficulty, and we never really get small versions of the map (if we do we finish it very quick). I know we can pick a custom map, and that might be easier, but we just get bored after a while doing the same map over and over, and especially when the map is smaller, it's just so easy to complete we tend to stick to the pre picked ones. I guess we can try grinding out very small to medium, 5 monsters, and maybe lower lives for more tickets? Let's see if it works!

(we also rarely get the necromorph monster (guy with shoulder spikes) and frostfoot/cryptwalker on the maps they can spawn. I know those are probably really rare, but they're the only ones we can't seem to fully unlock for custom. Other than zombies, but yeah screw dem blind butt heads lol

[Archie]

I'm in the same boat as you. 181 hours in, and so far i haven't encountered a single leech whatsoever.

There was this one time were i was playing with 2 friends, and one of them DID come across one in the Dead Forest map, so my leech counter is now stuck in 1/10. But it's been like this for so long now...

I've played in both maps where the leech can spawn so many times (Dead Forest and Deep Forest), yet no luck so far. They are definitely the rarest monster in this game for sure...

As for zombies, i seen to have the best luck finding them on the Castle map. Almost every time i pick that map, i'm guaranteed to find 3 zombies roaming around somewhere

[AkaiRam]

Well would be nice to improve the % of leeches, since i only had like 2 on all cases i had, only other monster i have not unlocked yet is frost foot but at least there i had him 8 times already.