Little rework to Lookout

[lomek455]

Lookout little rework


Lookout is a strong role and one of the hardest roles to make a good fake claim with, closely to impossible in current Jailor meta. Town usually decides to hang you if you didn't watch Jailor night 1, and even if there is no Jailor, some people can still type something like "tplo on me if no jailor" and request for results from lookouts.

Developers suggested (patch 3.2.5) to limit Lookout's possibilities to see only 3 visitors at maximum. I thought it would be like this, but name appearing is actually just based by RNG. I hardly disagree with this change, random elements for the game are bad.
Intention of suggestion were those:
1. In case if developers decide to change Lookout (again).
2. Make more claim-space for evils. Evils will have more time to prepare to make a fake Lookout's last will.
3. A little nerf to Jailor meta, same argument: it gives more time for evils to prepare to defend themself.

Main Suggestion:

I think Lookout should work like this:

At night 1, Lookout can visit someone to see how many visitors were on target.

At night 2, Lookout starts to identify visitors on previous target (the message will appear in the beginning of night), and has an ability to visit same or other target.

At the end of night 2, he will identify visitors from night 1 and will see how many visitors were on same or other target night 2.

And so on. Basically, Lookout gets delayed results.

Example of messages in-game:
Night 1
You have decided to watch John Hathorne tonight.
There were 3 visitors on the current target.(end of the night)


Night 2

You are attempting to identify visitors on previous target.(beginning of the night)
You have decided to watch John Willard tonight.
There were 2 visitors on the current target. (end of the night and further on)
Mary Warren visited previous target.
Thomas Danforth visited previous target.
Giles Corey visited previous target.



Secondary suggestion, part 1:
I can suggest to add fast identification for Lookout. If Lookout sees same visitor from previous night (as unidentified) and current night, he will be able to see the visitor on every next nights. But that's probably too much for the role, do you think this should be added? Or not?

It will look like this:
Night 1
You have decided to watch John Hathorne tonight.
There was 1 visitor on the current target.

Night 2
You are attempting to identify visitors on previous target.
You have decided to watch John Willard tonight.
There were 2 visitors on the current target.
Giles Corey visited previous target.
Giles Corey visited current target.
(and unidentified person that visited current target that will be uncovered for Lookout on next night)


Secondary suggestion, part 2:
I also think, we can remove the counter of visitors on current night. It can be still be serious part of Jailor meta, since Lookouts can whisper Jailor how much people visited the Jailor and then share results on day 3 with names. However, it can be countered with: killing Lookout N2 who whispers to Jailor day 2; making a lucky guess of numbers of visitors; teamplaying with mafia member, both of you whispering the Jailor the same number of visitors.

Lookouts can(not?) identify visitors after they die. (not sure about this, I just think it probably will make Medium more useful)

Some details:
If escort/consort role blocks Lookout, second one won't be able to see amount of visitors on current target and there will be no attempt of identification on next night.
Lookouts will be still able to identify visitors from previous night when they get role blocked, witched or jailed.

Describe what should be added or removed, and what do you think about secondary suggestions. Thank you!

[cob709]

Oooooh, this suggestion is a really good rework idea!
Yeah, this would partially solve how OP the LO is.

Perhaps instead of spending a night trying to "identify visitors", the lookout will instead get 2 things:

The Lookout will see the amount of players that visited their target
The Lookout will know the name of the visit if they see them twice(doesn't have to be on same target)

Overall, I think you have a great idea!
/support

[Brilliand]

A 1-night delay is a meaningful nerf, but I'm not sure it's enough. After all, the Town will still get all that powerful information, just one night later.

Will one mislynch lose the game for Town? Well... in high-ELO Ranked, maybe. But if the Town gets the first lynch right, they can begin using the same benefits of the TP/LO meta one day later.

[lomek455]

A 1-night delay is a meaningful nerf, but I'm not sure it's enough. After all, the Town will still get all that powerful information, just one night later.

It can matter a lot when 3 town members died and it's day 3, according to ranked role list it will be 6 vs 6 (powerful roles like Transporter, Mayor, Vigilante, Jailor's ability to execute, doc/bg who visit potential attacked targets and good vet can swing this match into town's opportunity) which is enough for mafia and NK considering if developers will buff NK in 3.2.5, so that 1 mislynch is critical.

Town usually does VFR on day 2, and it's better when people claim their role instantly to not waste a limited count of people to put on trial, it makes you less suspicious. TP/LO/ESC claimers allow evils to make a good fake Lookout's last will. If people find out that 1 Lookout contradicts the other (evil has all visitors in their last will except the real Lookout), it would make sence to give them extra night to see what results they get to see which one is real or better. An identification result from night 2 can matter a lot, usually Lookouts don't watch Jailor on night 2 because it's a Werewolf night.

If there is Witch in the match, you can request them to control Jailor after getting mislynch to avoid execution.

[Brilliand]

TP/LO/ESC claimers allow evils to make a good fake Lookout's last will

Oh, that... that's a good point.

A 1-night delay on the Lookout does a lot even in slower games.

[Mystoc]

The problem isnt Lookout the problem is confirmable roles that the LO watches is forced to watch

this makes LO claims forced to watch these roles and if these roles die they are just hanged for not having info

the problem is these confiramble roles not LO, where there is the meta of no choice of who to watch makes LO fake claims basically impossible

mayor should be the only confirmable role imo

[Brilliand]

The problem isnt Lookout the problem is confirmable roles that the LO watches is forced to watch

Not true. While it doesn't seem to have ever caught on, a meta of "tp/lo on 1" would still produce many of the benefits of the current Jailor meta (just not the Escort confirmation or Jailor protection). In fact going on a Mafia member is even better for confirming townies than going on the Jailor is, because Mafia can't visit Mafia at all.

[Mystoc]

I mean they aren’t confirmed there can be multiple tp in a game too evils can fake tp they can’t fake jailor it isn’t the same at all

[Brilliand]

I mean they aren’t confirmed there can be multiple tp in a game too evils can fake tp they can’t fake jailor it isn’t the same at all

Well yeah 1 isn't confirmed in that situation, but that was never the point. The point is to confirm the people that the Lookout sees visit.

[Venusupreme]

This change isn’t bad at all... but unfortunately, I don’t think it’s enough.

For one, the new meta will be that all Lookout claims need to whisper the Jailor the number of visits they saw on them. If any Lookout claim fails to do this, or gets a different number than another LO claim, then town can kill them safely/in a 1 for 1. This also nerfs Mafia in a way, who won’t be able to find out the list of people who visited the jailor by reading the LO’s whisper to the jailor on d2.

Spy also will see how many mafia visited the jailor, and once the LO does get the names of the people who visited the Jailor N1, they just have to give them to the town and immediately start killing anyone who visited the jailor but did not have a believable will. If mafia tries to claim LO, and doesn’t get the visits exactly the same as a real LO, it’s just a 1 for 1 resulting in them dying anyway. Even if there’s not a real lookout, if the mafia doesn’t see who every N1 visit to the jailor was, it just takes one person to speak up and say “that LO will is fake” and that would be another 1 for 1. And if more people claim to have visited the Jailor N1 than a LO claim saw, then you have a list of people containing at least one evil for sure.

Mafia could still try to claim TP or Spy, but those are already easily faked claims by mafia as it is.

The point about town not getting the information d2 is a very good one, but sadly it won’t wind up mattering if town doesn’t fuck up day 2 and kills someone who doesn’t have a believable will anyway, or if a different TI finds somebody, or if the NK kills a mafia/NE, or of the jester gets themself hanged d2 (which is still a 1 for 1 trade even if they kill a town), or if an investigator sees someone make a contradictory claim, or if the executioner wins/loses d2 (another 1 for 1 trade).... the list goes on and on.

This also doesn’t solve the problem with Forger being insta-fucked if they’re seen by an investigator as it’s pretty hard to fake LO even on day 2 if they do not know the correct number of visits.

I’ll admit that this was a well thought out idea, and I would prefer this to the way LO is currently. However, I firmly believe that my Forger buff is the best way to nerf Lookout and the Jailor meta.

[lomek455]

This change isn’t bad at all... but unfortunately, I don’t think it’s enough.

For one, the new meta will be that all Lookout claims need to whisper the Jailor the number of visits they saw on them.

Countered by teamplay with mafia members, 2 fake Lookout claimers with same number of visits, and a fake Spy claim (which can be problematic because you dont know about Escorts, you'll have to post after real Spy, or if there is none, but there was Escort, fake Spy won't work), on day 3 accuse real mislynched Lookout of being Disguiser (real Spy needs to be dead, but if you have fake Spy claiming teammate, he needs to add in his "MV" the fake Lookout as visited person, and accuse other real Spy, if he is alive, of being a mafia member), and if there is second real Lookout, accuse him of being mafia member.
Other plan is to not claim Lookout, but find real Lookout by looking on whispers to Jailor (easy with bmer in team), then kill him on night 2, leaving Jailor without names of visitiors. The only problem will be retri using dead Lookout, other real Lookout who watched Jailor n1, or sudden TP or trans on LO.
Or as variable option, I mentioned that numbers of visits can be removed from Lookout's mechanic. Lookout will just get delayed results. To add this or not, I leave it to BMG developers.

if the mafia doesn’t see who every N1 visit to the jailor was

VFR on day 2 helps, if people are not stalling and wasting 3 voting attempts. (Might not help if you add any TS/TK, those who didn't get VFR'ed, in your Fake lookout will.)

The point about town not getting the information d2 is a very good one, but sadly it won’t wind up mattering if town doesn’t fuck up day 2 and kills someone who doesn’t have a believable will anyway, or if a different TI finds somebody, or if the NK kills a mafia/NE, or of the jester gets themself hanged d2 (which is still a 1 for 1 trade even if they kill a town), or if an investigator sees someone make a contradictory claim, or if the executioner wins/loses d2 (another 1 for 1 trade).... the list goes on and on.

This is unavoidable chain of events. So it's better to sheep the town as early as possible.

I’ll admit that this was a well thought out idea, and I would prefer this to the way LO is currently. However, I firmly believe that my Forger buff is the best way to nerf Lookout and the Jailor meta.

It does not contradict Forger buff, Forger might have same mechanic as my Lookout with rework. It only contradicts old Lookout that can see all visitors instantly. My rework gives opportunity for any evil role to claim fake Lookout, not just Forger.

[Venusupreme]

This change isn’t bad at all... but unfortunately, I don’t think it’s enough.

For one, the new meta will be that all Lookout claims need to whisper the Jailor the number of visits they saw on them.

Countered by teamplay with mafia members, 2 fake Lookout claimers with same number of visits, and a fake Spy claim (which can be problematic because you dont know about Escorts, you'll have to post after real Spy, or if there is none, but there was Escort, fake Spy won't work), on day 3 accuse real mislynched Lookout of being Disguiser (real Spy needs to be dead, but if you have fake Spy claiming teammate, he needs to add in his "MV" the fake Lookout as visited person, and accuse other real Spy, if he is alive, of being a mafia member), and if there is second real Lookout, accuse him of being mafia member.
Or as variable option, I mentioned that numbers of visits can be removed from Lookout's mechanic. Lookout will just get delayed results. To add this or not, I leave it to BMG developers.

If the fake Lookouts get a different number of visits than a real Lookout did, and they tell the jailor (as they should) then the jailor just needs to point out that it’s a 2 for 1. The real LO will probably get hanged first, sure, but after that the town has 2 confirmed evils to kill.

Could the mafia choose a number and just pray that they get it right so that they can become trusted as town? Sure, but doing that would be very risky. If town has an actual lookout, you are instantly doomed, and even if they don’t, you could still find yourself/yourselves in trouble if more/less people claim to have visited the jailor than you saw.

Lookout would also become severely weakened by its inability to see who killed someone on a night where they watched them and they were killed or controlled. By nerfing Lookout in this way, we’re basically ENCOURAGING that Lookouts stay on the Jailor night 1, rather than discouraging the Jailor meta in the first place. Without the Jailor meta, Lookout really isn’t OP.

If Lookout is to be nerfed directly, rather than by buffing Forger, it should be done by making Lookout unable to see who ANY visitor on their target was if they get more than, say, 3 visits (excluding the LO themself). That way, it isn’t RNG based, and confirming multiple TP/LOs night 1 is much harder, if not impossible, to do. I can’t take credit for this idea, but I must admit that it’s a pretty good one that doesn’t rely on RNG.

That being said, I’m still not a sure that such a nerf would be necessary if Forger is buffed anyway. I agree with you that LO being impossible to fake is the main problem to address when nerfing the jailor meta. However, since TPs and Escorts and Spies (the other roles visiting the Jailor) can all be faked somewhat easily (except escort, requiring a consort, obviously), having a mafia role that can easily fake Lookout means that the practice of jailor coming out day 1 and having everyone visit him is much much much less effective. Hell, if there isn’t an actual Lookout, it’s entirely possible that the Mafia just got free info on the TPs without telling the jailor (or just lying to him).

The other possibility is only giving Lookout delayed results, as per your idea, if they see more than X number of visits on somebody. However, as I’ve stated earlier, this alone won’t really be enough to put an end to the Jailor meta and to nerf lookout. All it does is, on the offchance that town doesn’t have an actual lookout, give evils an extra day to create a fake lookout will (and they’d still need to give the jailor a number of visits on day 2, if that mechanic was kept, which could potentially backfire anyway). Even if they make a good will, it would only take one town member pointing out a contradiction for a 1 for 1 between the LO claim and that townie. It’s certainly better than nothing, but it isn’t enough of a nerf by itself.

The extra day being bought wouldn’t be enough to instantly cause town to lose if they hang a town on day 3, unless the town already has 3+ people dead and NO evils (which is kinda unlikely considering how often an evil winds up getting killed d2 or n2), and if the town doesn’t have a living mayor. Even if it is 6v6, town will not vote unless the evil in question is absolutely confirmed to be evil (or if the town is just stupid), which gives jailor and/or vigilante a chance to come back and kill evils anyway. During that time, TPs, escorts, and transporters can all potentially mess up evils as they try to thin town further, and the evils themselves could potentially step on each other’s toes trying to do so anyway.

I don’t want to nerf LO and buff forger at the same time, as it could be too much. That’s why I believe, to start, we should just buff forger. Then, if necessary, we can nerf lookout (as well as forger’s lookout ability) in the way I’ve described here.

You laid out a very good argument and had a great idea, but I sadly can’t agree with you. In any case, you’ve earned my respect, and you have been a very worthy opponent.