ghost changing rooms

[Kurt Frank]

My friend and I haven't played this game for a long time (we played before prison map was added). We returned and someone told us that ghosts can now change their prefered room. Can someone explain, how it works? Does it mean that we should move all of the equipment to another room?

[Tracker]

A Goryo cant change their room as part of their behavior so it is a good way to rule them out earlier on since DOTS can be a pain to get

[Kaisoku]

Note that "changing their room" isn't the same as "leaving their room".
The preferred room is basically 'point zero', or 'home base'. Every time they pick a random spot to path/walk to, it is in relation to that room. How far they can stray from their room's location can be based on difficulty settings.

Goryo has an effect to both of these elements: they don't change rooms, AND they don't roam as far on the same difficulty setting.

Aaaand their DOTS are even more finicky, since they won't ever do them if you are in the room, and they only show up on camera (not visually). Best to either have someone in the van looking into the room to confirm a Goryo's DOTS, or stand outside it's room with the camera so you can see it both on camera and NOT visually to confirm the unique Goryo effect.

I put those in spoilers in case someone wants to still discover this stuff on their own. It's pretty common knowledge now these days though.

[Myth Alric]

There is a chance that when the ghost roams it pick a new favorite room. So basically it wanders out of the room to some where else, then just doesn't come back and stay in that other room. So if the ghost suddenly goes inactive it is worth checking to see if it moved. This also makes stuff like motion sensors more useful, because you can see when it leaves the room and 'if' it comes back.

It is RNG so some games it might not move, and other games it might move often. As a ballpark guess, I want to say it tends to change rooms every 5-10 minutes on average. I usually play custom difficulty with it off, since it is a bit of a pain but it is fine if you stay on top of it.

[Captain Oveur]

Just because a ghost can change rooms doesn’t mean it will. I had a ghost to change rooms so frequently that I actually lost it’s general location and I watched one of Insyms last videos where he stayed in the house for 2.5 hours and it didn’t change its favorite room once.

You don’t necessarily need to move your equipment if the ghost changes its room. Only ghost orb evidence is dependent on where the room is as it’s the only evidence that’s bound to the ghost’s room. All other evidence can be collected from anywhere as long as the ghost roams far enough and frequently enough. However, keeping the stuff in the ghost room is generally advised because, as pointed out already, the ghost room is like the hub of ghost activity; the ghost should stay in its room more often than out of it.

[steventirey]

One note for the goryo - it can change rooms, just never on its own. It can still be forced to move by wishing for sanity with the monkey paw.