Does anyone else find it impossible to figure out the ghost?

[Dr.Squish]

Every since the new update I've been finding it almost impossible to get anything even through amateur. I've been playing the easiest gamemodes when I used to be able to do professional mode no sweat. With the ghost moving so often I have been having struggles locating it too. Like for example: in the two story street house I was searching for the ghost in amateur alone (because I will occasionally play by myself) and I finally got something which was a ball that was thrown down in the basement. I got an EMF of 2 there as well but next thing you know it wasn't down there. I went upstairs after it never showed up again in the basement and I got another EMF in the first room right above the stairs. It was an EMF of 3. I thought for sure that this was where it was because it stayed there the longest. I set up the camera outside of the room in the hallway area facing toward the open room and stairs. I did this because it ended up moving right outside of the room where there was freezing temps but only right outside the door and not anywhere else around the area. I set everything up only to get nothing. The only thing being freezing temps outside. 45 minutes of me going back and forth trying to find stuff on this ghost all around the house that just lead me back to the same place with the temp of -2 in front of the room. I eventually decided to guess and quit but after all the waiting and searching and trying to figure out what it was I found out it was the opposite thing I guessed. (I at first thought it was a demon and the ghost writing stuff just wasn't working and all of that) but turns out it was a banshee (if i remember correctly). Which led that one round to be about an hour or more long. I haven't been really able to play the game alone anymore no matter what tool I use or how easy or hard I set the gamemode. If anyone has advice for this new update I'd be very grateful. I just also want to know who else is having this issue. For me it was a complete turn around and I went from loving it and playing it once a day or more to basically never playing it in weeks.

[VanillaLucia]

This is unfortunately where you would need to start applying clues to ghost behaviors because this can indicate a number of things.

You may want to keep an eye on what ghosts do what because some ghosts have more unique patterns than others which can become misleading. For example, the Banshee like you mentioned has a unique ability to immediately start a hunt upon gaining line-of-sight on a player regardless of sanity). You can especially get this to trigger from far beyond the ghost's favorite room because I recall the Banshee is also one of the few ghosts who isn't afraid to wander quite a bit from its room. You would want to keep an eye on ghosts like the Phantom and Jinn as well because they also travel quite a bit (with the Breaker and power on the Jinn will definitely warp around the location and interact with objects wherever it can to throw you off and a Phantom will spend its time following players and walking around even far from its room).

When you are playing on the lower difficulties you have to wait for the timer to run out before the ghost starts giving away more obvious evidence such as freezing temperatures. In my experience I have never gotten that to show up in Amateur or Intermediate until we got "far" into the run such as being in there for about five minutes after the timer hit zero. On Professional this is immediate and you will definitely spot freezing temperatures right away. If you are seeing these temperatures inconsistently then it means you are near the ghost (as in it wandered) but you aren't near its room yet.

In my experience, you can tell if the ghost is a Demon simply if its activity is localized to its room or the rooms next to the ghost's favorite room. As you were saying, if you are being led into the basement, to the ground floor, and then around hallways without any particular clue then you can suspect you have a hallway ghost but you will need to pinpoint "where" in the hallway the activity is the most consistent. I have been trying to listen for footsteps to hear if ghosts are near me or have used things like motion sensors and Infrared sensors to try and help me pinpoint where the ghost is moving so that seeing more activity in an area helps narrow down the investigation.

I recommend using things like candles and glowsticks as you can drop a glowstick near a pile of salt and see when a ghost steps and decides to walk (seeing footprints immediately rules out a Wraith) or having something like a camera available in the case of a ghost manifesting because an immediate disappearance is a great indicator of a Phantom. If you happen to have a Ouija Board in the area you can ask the ghost "Where are you?" and also "What is your favorite room?" to identify both where the ghost currently is or where its room is. If you can already pinpoint the room you will likely draw the ghost to your location anyways and activity from outside that room will definitely indicate the degree of wandering the ghost does.

Personally I find that this update has made the game more exciting in that the ghosts are more challenging to pinpoint but it definitely can get frustrating when you are dealing with something like an Oni that for some reason got very shy in groups and refuses to give up its evidence. At this point you can really try to narrow down your options based on what you have and try to identify unique patterns and behaviors ghosts have that others do not have to help narrow down your investigation in the case that the ghost's presence is unreliable or if you cannot get evidence. To my knowledge, the Poltergeist only needs two pieces of evidence to identify it, the Phantom is unmistakable during a hunt or during a manifestation (you will see the Phantom very briefly and then they will be largely invisible during a hunt), and the Revenant is unmistakable if you try to loop it during a hunt without Smudge Sticks and a method to light them.

[Ducklord]

It's weird because last night I played with a friend and we did almost most of the maps in professional difficulty (except the prison and a few variants of streethouses and farmhouses) and we had no problems. The clues fell rather quickly, to our surprise, moreover. We had demons, shadows, ghosts and a few others that I can't remember at the time.

The routine of locating the generator on the map, going to turn it on as soon as you open the door, then we each go on our own in large areas such as school or asylum and the ghost is always betrayed itself quite quickly (And that in a few minutes, like 3-4) by a slamming door, a phone, or just a toothbrush throwing across the room.

We were quite surprised to easily find who we were dealing with. (Even if the demon almost got us this little joker)

The best advice I can give is to listen, it's what helps me spot potential places, the slightest noise of a falling object, door or sink.
Otherwise, you can go and place sound detectors, it keeps you from endangering yourself and it's quite effective for small houses if you really can't find any clues to find your room. It has helped me so far

[SweetJealousy]

The one thing that I like about this game is that Amateur and Professional isn't really different. Amateur is just as dangerous as Professional. The ghosts act the same and have have a good chance of killing you on either. On Amateur, you just get a head-start with locating the ghost before anything dangerous happens. Oh and the breaker is turned on.

If you're not getting evidence, sometimes you might want to check other rooms or the hallway. The ghost should be producing evidence in their room, but I sometimes find evidence outside of their room as well.

For ghost location, I find salt helps. They don't usually (at least from what I've experienced) step in salt outside of their room. That's how I will often narrow down their room. Put a drop of salt in the room, in the hallway and possibly in another room if they seemed to have wandered there. Salt and motion sensors.

Ghost orbs are the hardest evidence to find/get. The rest should be easy, except maybe EMF 5.

[Codester]

Nope haven't had any issues.
The game is more difficult, which is exactly what myself and my friends wanted. But still have yet to fail a mission or not get the ghost correctly. Their behaviors are very easy to figure out, using that you can rule out most options and then KNOW which clues you should be trying to get usually between 1 to 3 choices.

[Codester]

Originally posted by SweetJealousy:

The one thing that I like about this game is that Amateur and Professional isn't really different. Amateur is just as dangerous as Professional. The ghosts act the same and have have a good chance of killing you on either. On Amateur, you just get a head-start with locating the ghost before anything dangerous happens. Oh and the breaker is turned on.

If you're not getting evidence, sometimes you might want to check other rooms or the hallway. The ghost should be producing evidence in their room, but I sometimes find evidence outside of their room as well.

For ghost location, I find salt helps. They don't usually (at least from what I've experienced) step in salt outside of their room. That's how I will often narrow down their room. Put a drop of salt in the room, in the hallway and possibly in another room if they seemed to have wandered there. Salt and motion sensors.

Ghost orbs are the hardest evidence to find/get. The rest should be easy, except maybe EMF 5.

Actually theres a more differences than that.
The hunt timer is basically Twice as long, the way modifiers works is totally different too, as in they have a higher chance to hunt and the modifier range gets larger you go below last team average 60.