Guides/Common misconceptions

This guide dispels **common misconceptions** and myths about game mechanics in *Phasmophobia*.

## Investigation

### Being in a lit room will always stop passive sanity drain

Passive sanity drain is dependent on whether the room's "main lights" — chiefly ceiling light fixtures — are turned on or not. Other light sources that may be present in the room, such as table lamps, floor lamps, and electronic devices like televisions, will not prevent passive sanity drain despite illuminating the room to some degree. Additionally, in larger rooms with a lower overall light level, such as most hallways in Sunny Meadows Mental Institution, having the main lights on will not completely prevent passive sanity drain either, instead reducing it to 80% of the normal rate, which can cause sanity drain to be perceived as faster on these maps, depending on individual playstyle (whether the lights are usually turned on to preserve sanity). Firelights within 2 metres of the player will reduce, but not stop, passive sanity drain, with the effectiveness dependent on the tier.

### The radio messages at the beginning of an investigation will hint about the ghost type and/or its behavior

These messages are simply there for immersion and are chosen randomly. They do not correlate to the ghost type or give any indication about its behavior at all.

### My dead body photo must be taken for me to receive insurance payout

The dead body photo does not affect whether a player receives insurance, and instead awards a small amount of cash depending on how many stars the photo has much like any other. Insurance is instead given automatically, the value of which being a portion of the purchase price of all equipment added by that player for the contract. Insurance is only given on Intermediate difficulty and lower.

## Items and Equipment

### Higher EMF readings mean imminent danger

The level of an EMF reading has no correlation to a ghost's overall activity or aggression. Instead, EMF readings are individually linked to specific actions from the ghost; for example, the ghost opening or closing a door gives an EMF level 2, and it throwing an object will give an EMF level 3. Also note that EMF readings do not add up on the EMF reader. This means that a ghost interacting with two adjacent doors (EMF level 2 each) will not give an EMF level 4, but will instead create two separate EMF 2 readings, one for each interaction.

Continuing on this, an EMF Level 5 reading is simply a random chance of an EMF level 2 or EMF level 3, and is unrelated to whether the ghost is going to attack soon. In the same vein, getting a series of higher EMF readings does not necessarily mean that the ghost will trigger an EMF Level 5 either.

### The lowest temperature in the room indicates the ghost's exact location

This is not true; when a ghost is in a room, the temperature of the *entire* room will drop, not just the spot that the ghost is in. The temperature on the thermometer always fluctuates, hence whether it is "lower" in a specific spot is not meaningful in terms of the exact position of the ghost. Even then, low or freezing temperatures is not a guarantee of the ghost being in a particular room at a specific time, as temperatures rise and fall slowly when the ghost leaves or enters a room.

### "What is your favourite room" with the Ouija Board gives the favourite room

Asking for the name of the favourite room only gives an answer of the ghost's *current* room, *regardless* of how the location question is phrased. People may have found it to give the favourite room in earlier versions, but this is because the ghost tended to roam around less and stay in its favourite room, hence giving the impression that asking for the favourite room was accurate. On the other hand, the Haunted Mirror *does* show the favourite room, even if the ghost is elsewhere when it is used.

### The smoke emitted from extinguished firelights indicates that the ghost interacted with them

No, candles will always emit the same type of smoke regardless of what caused them to go out. However, a "huffing" sound will be heard if a candle is blown out by the ghost, which is not the case if it burns out on its own.

### Using the spirit box/leaving the spirit box on lowers sanity

Using the spirit box and obtaining a response will not drain sanity on its own. However, as using the spirit box requires the player to be in a dark room, passive sanity drain from darkness will apply normally. Note that the Moroi has a unique ability where it will "curse" the player using the Spirit Box upon answering, causing their passive sanity drain to be increased until the curse is lifted.

### Flashlights must be turned off when using the spirit box

Using the spirit box requires on-site lights in the favourite room light to be turned off, but not player-brought equipment light. The ghost will still give responses even with flashlights on or if there are firelights burning in the room. This also applies for lights in adjacent rooms; the Spirit Box will still work even if doors are open or the "room" is not separated by a physical wall (such as the kitchen and the dining room on Bleasdale Farmhouse).

### Crucifixes can stop ongoing hunts and/or protect the player from the ghost

The only function of the crucifix is to *prevent* hunts from happening if the ghost is within its effective range. Crucifixes will have no effect on the ghost once it starts hunting, including against Demons. The only way to stop an ongoing hunt before its natural expiration is for all players to manage to leave the investigation area while a hunt is ongoing, the only legitimate method of doing so being using the Monkey Paw to unlock the exit doors and then walking outside.

### Using on site objects or items has repercussions on the ghost's activity

Interacting with the map and furniture, even in an excessive way, will not rile up or anger the ghost into hunting. The only map items that can trigger a hunt from the ghost are cursed possessions, depending on how the item is used.

## Maps

### The screams heard on Sunny Meadows Mental Institution indicate where the ghost is

The distant screams echoing through the building are merely map ambience sounds which are not related to the ghost.

### Ghosts can change their favourite room to anywhere on the map

In theory, this is true, but this will vary widely depending on the ghost's abilities, the difficulty settings on roaming and favourite room changing chance, the layout of the map, and whether the player uses cursed possessions.

Ghosts have a chance of changing favourite room when performing long roams, and each singular roam has a maximum path distance of 10 metres.

* A ghost can realistically change from the Dining Room in Tanglewood to the Master Bedroom in one roam.
* A ghost in the Foyer of Bleasdale Farmhouse would have to minimally change favourite rooms to the Upstairs Hallway first, before possibly changing to the Attic.
* A ghost in the A/B blocks of Prison would find it very hard to change rooms to the front section of the map, since the intermediate hallway cannot be chosen as a favourite room.

However, ghosts such as the Wraith, Phantom, and Banshee can go to a player anywhere on the map, and hence have a higher chance of changing favourite rooms. Otherwise, in general, the further a room is from the ghost('s current favourite room), the lower the chance is of the ghost changing its favourite room to there.

## Hunt

### Ghosts can be triggered to hunt by addressing them in certain ways

This is not true. Saying the ghost's name or certain trigger words near the ghost only increases the chance of an interaction, and not hunts. The only ghost which may hunt more often when players are talking near it is the Yokai, and this merely raises the hunt sanity threshold rather than causing it to hunt on command (and additionally concerns *any* sort of speech, not just trigger words). In other words, there are no ways to make ghosts start hunting simply by being vocally active.

### Ghosts who have EMF Level 5 evidence will give it out during hunts

Regardless of whether the ghost has EMF Level 5 as evidence, electronic interference when the ghost manifests during a hunt or a ghost event will only give levels 1 - 4 on an active EMF reader. It is hence useless to check for EMF 5 when the reader is being interfered with during hunts, and indeed is generally dangerous, as the active reader will broadcast the player's location to the Ghost.

However, even while hunting, the Ghost still makes EMF interactions when it interacts with the environment. For example, if the ghost touches a door while searching for players, the door will still make a readable interaction. Once the ghost goes far enough away, which makes electronic equipment usable, one can then read the EMF level from that door, which potentially could be a level 5 reading. It is thus possible to check for EMF level 5 during hunts, but not as a result of electronic interference.

### The ghost will not hunt so long as at least one teammate has high sanity

The probability of a hunt happening takes into account the average sanity of all players (displayed at the top of the Sanity Monitor inside the van), whether they are outside or inside the building. This means that a lone player with high sanity will still face very aggressive behavior from the ghost if the rest of the players have low sanity, even if they all stay outside. The ghost only checks for the presence of a player inside the building to initiate a hunt, not their individual sanity level.

One exception to this is the Banshee, which will only check its target's sanity to hunt, and regardless if its target is inside or outside the investigation area.

### Ghosts can chase the player outside the investigation area/onto the van

This is not a feature of the game. If you see a ghost outside the building (and perhaps it kills someone), then someone in your lobby is likely modifying the game. In this case, it is advisable to report the player and avoid playing with them. There used to be a bug in the game where the ghost could kill players through exterior doors if they stood too close to them, causing players to die while outside the building, but this was due to a hitbox issue and not due to the ghost leaving the building.

As an aside, crucifixes *can* prevent hunts when located outside of the investigation area, or even when sitting on the equipment wall in the van, as crucifixes do not check for walls, obstacles, or zone boundaries to block a hunt, nor do they need to be activated in any way. Hunts prevented from the van usually occurs on maps where the van is parked close enough to certain rooms (e.g., the garage of 42 Edgefield Road), and the ghost just so happened to be on the very edge of those rooms while it attempted to hunt and got caught in the crucifix's effective range.

### Ghosts can see through doors or walls

In general, most ghosts (including Wraiths) *cannot* see players through doors or walls. However, during hunts, all ghosts can pass through doors as if they didn't exist. The only ghost who can see through physical objects is the Deogen, who will always know the location of the player no matter where they are on the map, rendering hiding or line-of-sight breaking completely useless.

### Ghosts can remember where you hid in a previous hunt/hiding in the same spot multiple hunts in a row is unsafe

Ghosts will only "remember" where a player was into the next hunt if it *detected* any player in that specific spot in the previous hunt, be it through line-of-sight, electronics, or voice. If no-one was detected in or near that spot, it will *not* remember that you hid there. However, organic hiding spots are trickier, because if someone from the previous hunt was detected in the general area (not necessarily *in* the hiding spot), in the next hunt, the ghost may wander in that area for a while before moving on, and potentially find you hiding there. Only in this case may it be more desirable to hide in a different place for that particular hunt.

In short, unless someone was detected in the spot in the immediate previous hunt, or for organic hiding spots, near that spot, choosing to stay in the same spot across multiple hunts is no more dangerous than choosing to move.

### The ghost won't see me if I turn all the building lights off

The ghost's vision is unaffected by darkness, and they can see players in the dark just as well as they can in the light. Conversely, ghosts do not actually "see" the light beam from a flashlight, instead sensing it as with other active electronic equipment, nor can they see the light emitted by any other type of equipment, electronic or non-electronic.

### Using global chat during hunts could cause other players to die

Unless the other player's microphone is picking up the sound from their own speaker, this is not the case. Using global chat during a hunt will attract the ghost to only the player who is pressing the button, if the ghost is near enough. This has been designed to prevent griefing in this manner where players attempt to kill other players.

## Ghosts

### Lit firelights can affect the Hantu's speed

Firelights do not affect the Hantu's speed. Only the room's temperature (which can be read on a thermometer) will affect its speed. Currently, the only sources of flame that affect room temperatures are Maple Lodge Campsite and Camp Woodwind's campfires when lit.

### Jinns will interact with electronics more often

Jinns do not have a higher chance of interacting with electronics; they interact with items in the same way as other ghosts.

### Obakes can mimic player models

Obakes cannot mimic player models. It only has a small chance to briefly change into another ghost model every time it flashes during a hunt. This misconception may derive from a special ghost event that was scrapped early after pre-release where the ghost could mimic player models.

### Onryos will avoid lit firelights

Firelights do not affect how much the Onryo roams or moves, and any open flames will only prevent the Onryo from initiating a hunt in a similar manner to crucifixes.

### The Onryo's ability to hunt after blowing out a flame bypasses crucifixes and other lit flames

This ability hunt can still be blocked by crucifixes, smudging, and other lit flames. Other ghost's ability hunts can also be blocked by normal hunt prevention methods. Only cursed hunts cannot be blocked. Note that there is a potential bug under investigation where ghosts wrongly determine their current room when above a basement, and this is *speculated* to result in a secondary bug such as the Onryo bypassing crucifixes and flames for its ability hunt.

### Raijus can drain power from any electronic source

Only active electronic equipment brought in from the van (e.g. flashlights, active sensors and projectors, and active Head Gear) will power the Raiju's abilities. Other sources of electricity, like power sources that depend on the breaker (native lighting, alarm clock/radio, computers, TVs, etc.) do not boost the Raiju, so there is no need to turn these off beforehand.

### The Mimic's Ghost Orbs will follow the ghost/work differently from other ghosts

The Mimic's ghost orbs function no differently from that of other ghosts; they will stay in the favourite room, move around in a random direction like other ghosts' orbs, and swap rooms only when the favourite room changes.

### The Twins is two functional ghosts

Code-wise, The Twins is just one ghost, but it has two separate interaction ranges: the normal range and an "extended" range, which allows it to interact with items that are very far away from it, giving off the illusion that there is another ghost roaming the building. When The Twins tries to hunt, there is a 50/50 chance that it will either hunt from where it is standing or near from where it last interacted with its extended range.

### The rate of interactions increases as sanity decreases

Unlike ghost events and hunts, interactions are *not* directly affected by sanity. Instead, having the lights turned on in rooms where the ghost is present will make it less likely to interact, which incidentally may reduce the player's sanity drain as they stay in the light more, hence giving the impression that lower sanity increases activity.

### Wraiths will avoid salt at all costs

This is not true; Wraiths will simply pass though salt piles without disturbing them, including during hunts, and have no further interactions with them.

## References

1. ↑ "Interactions aren't [sanity based]..." Cjdxn, *Phasmophobia* Lead Artist.