[MakeshiftWalrus]

My biggest problem with the guards is that they even exist as a player entity.

My second biggest problem with the guard is that they even interact with antagonists at all.

This is a game about a fantasy setting, not medieval town sim 2020. Heroes should be fighting villain's, Guardsmen should for the most part be weaker than general player characters, with the occasionally named guard hero that may join and requisition a group of heroes during an event. that being said the sheer number of a guard in a city should exist to dissuade player aggression in cities. Instead we have guards using some of the most disgusting meta chasing builds around.

One of the biggest issues with guards (and the game in general) is Consent. I've heard stories of folks being forced into pvp, then getting forced to choose between horrible mutilation or death. I've seen folks get choo choo trained by the Guard, the Guards friends, the guards b squad, then the guards again after a healer rp'd healing them during the second fight only to finally lose, get softbanned in jail, then told that their character was getting executed.

To imply that the guard shouldn't exist is silly. As someone from the era of people chain-ganking each other in the middle of populated cities, it should be fairly obvious to you why exactly the guard is needed in the first place.

Your first example I have never seen, you'll have to be more specific. The second example is why we now have the fleeing rules in place, and adhere to those when it comes to fighting in cities where the guard are at their strongest.

[Perdition]

Except I did explain myself ICly. The guards ignored that anyway. Either way your logic here is ass backwards because you give the person attacking in broad daylight a “firm warning” which allows them to go on and do the same exact behavior while the person assaulted gets jailed before? The fact of the matter is my character was guilty before yours even showed up. You’re just in your feelings because I used some mean words and think that justifies what happened.

Any way you cut it, if someone is not resisting what so ever and is getting suns dropped on them, never once fights back, and the person assaulting them is just given a “warning” that’s some dumb shit. But you’re biased because I said some mean words so there’s no point in explaining any further. Everyone I’ve explained the situation to thinks it was just as stupid as it looks on paper.

[Balor]

Your behavior spoke for itself, and the fact that you received a warning from a GM and not the Guard, Myself, or anyone else present and communicating over the situation is also telling. Anyone who thinks the situation is in your favor, obviously wasn't there. Nor does it justify trying to kill yourself in Arjav to avoid a minor sentence.

However I will drop discussions with you from here onwards, you are not the point of the post. However you are one of the examples of toxicity towards the guards.

--

To move on back to the topic, Guards need an internal rework and more support. However the terms of their presence outside of Major Cities should be toned down, allowing some clemency for antags.

[Lolzytripd]

Walrus the chainganking days were a symptom of a problem and player guards only slap a bandaid on that. I did not mean literally guards should not exist, I meant that players should not be playing them. Serious pvp shouldn't even be an option in any city unless given gm approval due to the implied heavy guard npc presence.

You shouldn't need guard players outside of the cities except to be played during villainous events because the game should enforce proper consent and ettiquette. This isn't SL1 where pvp automatically starts at the click of a button. Players shouldn't have to accept life or death pvp in the middle of a dungeon just because mcganker likes to hurt people. People shouldn't be forced to accept that if they lose this nonconsentual pvp that they either have to Die or get physically maimed, multiple broken bones, possible lost limbs/racial traits.

Consent. you've all lost the point of it.

[MakeshiftWalrus]

The solution to disallow any form of hostility in any 'Safe' area is more of a bandaid fix than not having any active management. Your suggestion creates an extreme reliance on GM-oversight for any time anyone wants to do anything vaguely antagonistic, which is going to choke out anything that isn't slice of life in these general areas.

The game has consent in most forms. In fact, it's one of the games on the platform with too much consent in my opinion. Look at any Naruto clone, DBZ game, or Eternia, and you'll find that SL2 is a paragon amongst its peers when it comes to things being forced upon others. I'm not sure I understand your argument, because nothing of what you said is relevant here, and the guard is specifically designed to give player agency when it comes to the world, and lessen the reliance on GMs that aren't around 24/7 to help with petty crime.

You're not preaching etiquette, or consent. What you're asking for is mechanical rail roading to what kind of role-playing can happen where, and I don't agree with that in the slightest.

[Aqua]

Now that a few people have given their insight of this I'm finally going to give my point, please do take into account that this may be biased due to be being a guard myself as well as been someone has been arrested. Most of what I'll be posting will be things I've mentioned to Mark when he enquired with the Majority of the guards if not all of them 6 months ago.

Being a guard is a chore and is more like babysitting/a security camera

As it stands at this current moment it currently feels like a chore if not is a chore which shows no sign of changing anytime soon. You clock in for hours where you stand for hours before you clock out, during that watch, it's usually always 'same shit, different day' scenario. By this, I mean general square talk with the occasional IC muppet that decides to break the law or whatnot, this is not saying that's a bad thing since that's quite literally our jobs to handle. If it's not that it's 3 AM- 4 AM pings where someone decided to hold someone hostage because they didn't like something or something petty.

It's plain boring to say the upmost least about it. Of course, as stated in a previous post above once you have successfully gotten through the trainee programme, something else I'll discuss a little about in this post, you are automatically put into the highest-ranking position you can be, which is the first Squad. There is little to no choice what so ever what type of guard you can be. For those that don't know, as stated we have several branches for Sigrogana's Guardship. Seekers, Launchers and Inquisitors. These all have there own tasks within the guard but there is no way to actually be one without having a First Squadder. Your ICly and OOCly expected to be competent in PVP as well as fall inline otherwise the general opinion boils down to being disappointed in the Individual.

Trainee Programme

This was started up back in 2018 by a now-former member of the Imperial guard player in a way so people didn't have to apply for it. Its basic function was to provide those without the knowledge of how to become an Imperial guard with good knowledge of becoming one. As someone who went through that batch in 2018 along with people such as Mark and Iggy, it took way too long to even process or things to be done. Back then the groups were much bigger then they are now which is still a problem. However back then it only took as long as it did due to both our Trainee Leaders ended up quitting (for perfectly fair reasons). Coming to the back end of 2019 when we had the latest batch of trainee's we trialled something different, that being a Trainee/Mentor approach, however, this just ended up being left to very few of the Mentor guards to progress it, which to them is unfair so props to those who did actively put their time into helping get the trainees through into the guardship.

This could use some reworking as a whole to which I'm sure many of the existing guards will agree on but this definitely needs a rework if this is ever going to work. Another thing which I feel is pretty discouraging for players is there is a lack of being informed if you were accepted into the Trainee Programme, I've seen this to be the case for a few people and to be honest it's completely fair. There is a clear lack of this which I feel needs to change. Hitting up those that didn't get into the trainee stuff would at least ease their minds.

One suggestion I've been thinking of is rather than having trainee apps retcon those who have already applied, I feel it may be better to keep those applications and work from them, of course leaving Trainee Applications open yearly rather than at a random time for x amount of time. For example:

Batch 1: 6 trainees
Batch 2: 6 Trainees (These would be from applications of when the first batch went up) etc, this can all be kept track of either on a Discord server or a Google spreadsheet.

Of course, this is the first I've really brought this suggestion publically if at all so it's a first any of the guards has heard of it. This would, of course, all be decided ICly to give people ample and fair chance.

Arjav & IC Punishments

As it currently stands this is considered a soft ban to most people, which in all honesty is. We've changed IC punishments recently to reflect lower Arjav times and even Introduced community services. To be fair we should actually be making use of the Community services that came into action, I haven't really seen them used other than one or two occasions for minor things. There's really nothing to do in Arjav, your lucky if you have much roleplay in there given how many people are actually discouraged to break the law.

We've lessened the time in which someone can be in Arjav to a week at max and introduced community services which I've stated above. This system went into place when the recent trainee batch was brought in, however, community services haven't been used what so ever for the most part. Fines have also been discussed but so far they haven't been implemented but a few of us are pushing for them to be a thing, trust us we're doing our best to get that implemented instead having to deal with a soft ban.

Other than that there isn't really much more I can say on this that hasn't already been said.

Other Guardships locked behind being a Member of First Squad

As some of you are aware or are not aware there are other guardships within the game, which without the suggestion from Moira a while back, no one would be aware of, to combat this I put up a thread (https://neus-projects.net/forums/showthr...p?tid=6720) detailing such guardships and the general area's they have the authority over. However, the fact that to even become a member of any other guardship you have to be a guard in Sigrogana is a pain in the ass. It doesn't give the community the opportunity to play members of an 'official' group which I feel is unfair. My suggestion for this is making all Law enforcements not locked behind Imperial guard membership to promote more RP, and heck maybe we'll see other places more active. I feel this would be a great start along with Player's being able to be Guard commanders now.

Also, when even remotely sniff or think about joining the guard. Many people warn me not too-- Even other guard players. Which is also pretty demotivating and somewhat adds to my somewhat negative perception of things.

Yeah, I can see where this is coming from, I'm a huge culprit for doing so, however, it's more an opinion based on how much salt we get. So I wouldn't let that discourage you from trying. Don't knock it till you try it really.

Im unsure if I'd fit in being my status of not being some PvP metalord, but I certainly would not mind giving it a shot at some point in the future. Even if its a less combat-oriented role. Which-- from what I've seen, there's plenty of mostly unused ranks as people have stated.

Yeah, a lot of people have got this opinion and it's not quite true. You don't have to be some PVP metalord to be a guard but you are expected to have PVP competent builds for First Squad, which I understand is very demotivating for people. Play what's fun for you is all I can suggest and hopefully we can push for things like seekers and the likes be something you can opt into.

For example, I had a character that was attacked in the middle of Dormeho and guards showed up and arrested my character for being attacked. They literally were not fighting back, had a max size setting sun dropped on them, and we're just trying to de-escalate the situation as they knew the other person that was going apeshit in question and they got arrested after being put to half HP and never once having fought back. Oh and, that person that assaulted me? They weren't apprehended LUL. I'm not blaming the guards in question because the system facilitates this, but it leads to some absolutely backwards as fuck shit. Guards don't show up and take statements, they just dole out arrests, especially if the court of public opinion has determined a bad guy before the guards arrive at the scene.

As a guard who was there (not actively handling it and on another character on that key) there is nothing more I can say that hasn't already been said. It's common knowledge that if you feel a guard is doing something wrong, you can take it to Chaos with logs. The attack on you by the said shaitan was in fact instigated by your own actions and several people saw it. You were even ICly asked to leave them alone but you didn't, thusly the actions that happened were brought on you by your own doing. The shaitan was also warned if that's not good enough by your standards I'm sorry but that's how things went ICly.

People actively keep things from the Guards and Governments in the game. Largely because we are unaware of which GM, or if the GM's have any control of Governments, guards, etc. In any continent besides Sigrogana. The fact it was unclear that there were guards on the other continents is a testimony to just how ill-informed the player base is in regards to the people who are supposed to be policing us.

People keeping things from us a huge problem, it just proves my point of being a lose-lose situation for us guards. However, hopefully, the thread I've linked lessens the ill-informing of the player base and hopefully, it gets pinned.

Other than that there is nothing more I can say on the topic.

[sadbot]

Just to keep things short, I think Walrus is right on the money with how to help improve the guard as a guild, as well as the guard guilds of other continents as well as a knock on effect.

Also I can very much agree that guards not responding to calls in the middle of nowhere between major settlements is also probably healthy for related rp, and may also help to make room for more casual, non-event antagonist roleplay after that hopefully is addressed a bit as a whole in its own time.

[Shujin]

Things I personally experienced from the Guards range from some good experiences to mostly negative ones. Lets see if I can come up with some good examples to try and give constructive critique and how I think they could handle situations better.

Guards have problems with deciding when to be Guard

What I mean by this is not only that many of them are very picky upon bias if they should act cause OOC friend is involved or someone they dislike, we all know they do it, and it to a degree human even though has nothing lost inside the guard force in my opinion, as its supposed to stop griefing...Not enhance your own griefing agenda. Neutral and fair behavior is kinda what I expect. 

But what I actually mean is, that some guards are overzealous in when they jump in, to the point its not fun to RP...Guards need to understand that handing out Soft RP bans, in a silly system that stacks jail time even for entirely unrelated crimes is not a good thing to do. Especially since most play Absolute Imperial Nazis so Criminal is Criminal, no matter if you accidentally broke someone's pencil or if you mass murdered 500 people. Same treatment. I honestly think thats kinda bad RP if thats your only gimmick.
Example:
I remember long ago, there was a day in the Arena. Shivania (who had a bit of a criminal history back then already) was talking with one of her friends who was sulking and down, in a moment of him getting too depressed she gave him a little push followed by a little pep talk of "When you fall, you stand up!" or well attempted to but -> A guard saw the little push, and imprisons them for a couple of OOC weeks?
-> How did that help anyone? This action was obviously more fueled by OOC, cause people literally are hawking there trying to get the slightest excuse to mess with someone they do not like, no matter if its actually good for the RP or character development. You can't tell me that a friendly push is a criminal offense in Sigrogana that resorts in instant jail time with no prior warning (even a warning is kinda pushing is here) This is a toxic behaviour that guards fully support and unhealthy for RP. 

Now an extreme example in the other direction:
Delphia/Fern was in the Arena, her character was extremely depressed and I think it was during the time where the char had a bit of an idenity criss ICly, so she litterally attacked someone who provoked her a little. PvP->won->guards witnessed but...Guess what? Nothing was done, and people started to OOCly joke that Delphia could literally kill someone ICly in front of everyone the guards wouldn't do shit... And I think up to this date, thats true.
-> However, do not get me wrong...In that specific incident? Inside the Arena where the intention was no clear harm, just beat them up for being an ass? I think its actually fine to not persue as an Guard. If someone speaks fighting words that might as well be a challange there. But thats not the rules that we have, and therefore its an favortism-case which shouldn't exist in the guard force where people openly claim its an extension for the GMs to decrease their work load...Not a tool for people to actively Bully/protect their friend circle.

Next example for this case I have was:
Spellthief was relatively new during that time. I made a new character that was supposed to be my new main, I played a few weeks, played ICly games with people and simply enjoyed RP with them and he was fairly liked ICly.
One day I made the mistake and went to the Arena with him and entered an agreed sparring match. So since the opponent was a mage, he used spell snatch to take away some of the opponent's attack options. I remember reading in Lore dev saying this specifically: "Spell snatch is as much a crime as someone ripping a page out of a book." Correct me if I am wrong but, I see that as a very, very minor thing. And I am convinced Dev didn't mean in an agreed sparring match. However, of course the overzealous Guards want to imprison them cause "CRIME, CRIME!"...No warnings no nothing. Even if that was a fairly easy to miss thing for for example new players (Okay that doesn't apply to me, but still).
Cause I know that guards actively target me, and having already one crime down your belt is making them go nazi mode on you I decided to suicide him on the spot and just go on with my life. Maybe not the best reaction but it saved alot of mental health for me and I think up to this date it was worth it and the right decision. Not because I didn't want to play him, but because I do not want to be targeted by Guard-bullies for OOC reasons. This is NOT helping RP, this is making people avoid public spaces because of whimsy guards ruining your RP for quite literally no reason while defending your friends from...What? Rp?

If you think "ripping the page out of a book" in a spar, is a jailable offense...Then you are an idiot, sorry. But the damage someone would receive in spars in the scale people have here in Sigrogana were they litterally throw miniature suns at each other or cast high class invocations? I ASSURE you their equipment would get more than just a chip away, and when they carry a book inside a huge sun thats dropped on them, it gets singed. Just because people don't rp every tiny detail, thats not true...At the same time me rping that my sword broke during the spar, after hitting a tank 500 times shouldn't get the tank jailed for basically breaking my sword or vise versa.
Guards have terrible issues with communication when it comes to important events.

This one is extremely weird for me. Guards are SO good at orcherstering ganks, traps for people to imprison them, if they annoy them or are generally actually there when something is indeed going down that needs their attention, that I am actually baffled at how events that play out for years and months are not communicated between the guards force in any form.

For example I have again my Character Shivania. Regarding a plotline and in my opinion, a decent way to handle "Alternative punishments", my character who is something of a known criminal collaborated with the Guards Commander because they have ICly the same enemy which was a person in a plot of a player, most people know.  Because many of the crimes she has commited were dircetly tied to that person they came to the Following Agreement:
-You help us deal with him in exchange if you capture/deal with him all your crimes to this point are pardoned however because we do not trust you to go up and run, you are forced to live now in Cellsvich where we can supervise you.

So in theroy this meant I was still part of that eventline, But I was technically in a "Golden Cage" so to speak as I wasn't allowed to leave the continent at all, unless I specifically asked for permission. I was fairly happy with that, its only unfortunate that the event line never progressed and I therefore were forced to be imprisoned forever.

However here is where the info communication between the guards seems flawed and I believe needs to be improved. If agreements with players such as that are made, they should be made known to the guards force. More often than not I walked into guards who wanted to send me to go home to Laws End again, fully unaware of such events. Nor that they are supposed to "Watch me". The only ones that kinda knew about this where the guards that were there with me when the Commander made that deal.

Fast forward like a couple of OOC years later, I asked Chaos if there was mayhaps an alternative to do, cause people insisted on me not being able to make stuff fun for me and everyone else and therefore sticking in Cellsvich just brought me no joy to RP.
After a bit of back and forth we decided to just say that the watch time is over, since there is no reasonable time frame in where the plot would be continued if ever. 
In my opinion a bad solution, but not really anyones fault. Just bad luck and a lot of potential character building tossed otu the window BUT...
Suddenly when I was traveling around again (And a guard being especially Hawky again with newfound powers) and came back to the Arena, like a week later they approached me about the thing that I left Sigrogana and stuff...Ihad to explain to them that Chaos lifted it already a bit ago and well...Thats where the issue lies, apparently that info was never given to the other guards, creating super awkward situations ICly.

Long story short? I think there should be a special media you use where you write down "Special Snowflake" cases that all guards can look up so they can instantly confirm what was said, instead of harassing the people for a longer period of time because they do not believe you.

Guards are way TOO active in businesses they have no reason to be active in

This includes Villian chasing, suddenly extending their reach to Laws End or other places out of their control(Not all do that, but its still dumb when it happens. you are IMPERIAL guards.)...In General, the Guards are a defensive/crime solving force but the setting is...Well not really meant as such...And if it is? Then you have to punsih every adventurere that is commiting vigilantism and not under your direct command (aka hired or something)
This is also something that seems to be a case by case, how ever I feel kind of thing when Guards actually punsih that and when not. I feel this needs to be unified. Either Adventures are allowed to deal with shit or they are not. However here is my prediction....If you make this "Guard Simulator" and everyone else is only supposed to watch you will find even less activity in open places and peopel will even more write their own Stories in their own reality bubbles, cause...The guard system is->

Not very supportive of RP as a whole.
This includes "Soft-ban" punsihment and other moments where guards overstep their boundaries and make themselves Protagonists.
However this isn't the guards fault. The Guard as a force NEEDS to exist. Its just turned into something pretty bad for in my opinion the following reasons:
-Players and Guards do not work WITH each other to make plot lines, and it kinda derails into a "I piss them off, because they piss me off", and both sides are guilty of that. there have been examples of how this CAN be done in a benefical way, but thats unfortunately not the norm.

-Many people avoid public areas mainly BECAUSE the guards exist. While their existance is indeed needed and a good thing, the way its handled is something that boils down to SL2 Community again...They play to win, not to create RP. Many times Events gets snuffed out long before they can even become interesting, simply by imprisoning someone without even a hint of IC evidence, cause the guards' force are->

-Omnipotent. What they say is Law at that moment, that a terrible thing for many reasons. Not only does this invite them to just lock away people they don't like based on suspicion, its once again not a tool to build stories, but to snuff them out early on.
now I understand that many times Guards are just having to deal with "Same Shit, I do not really wanna deal with"....But honestly? If thats your mindset, stop playing a guard. This just enhances the big divide in the community and enforces this stale world that we have cause no one wants to deal with a guard like that either. Heck I would LOVE to make collaborating events WITH the guards, towards certain goals. Thats awesome and fun...But if I feel like they just snag me in for a soft ban at any point in this, for whatever reason they might be able to think of at that time or snag someone away I that is basically the antagonist of that plotline just to early end it (Read protagonist Guard, with meta build)....I rather play with my friends in my own reality bubble where guards exist in huge numbers, but are more human instead of walking gods.



Overall I think Guards and Players need to communicate more, many issues can be solved or even plotlines build that way.
Another thing is, but thats more a community problem, than a guard problem but they are certainly part of it... Try to play less for the sake of winning. I know sometimes people are annoying and do really stupid shit to force your hand...But other times you just...Overact. 
As much as you are tired of this shit, peoples are tired of the guards overacting and the staleness of the world...Both sides handle things wrong though in my opinion but thats also the games fault for having no real alternatives in a world thats simply too big for our small playerbase.

Just my 2 cents and experiences that I think could have been handled better and are by no way singular cases. Many guards are simply not qualified in my opinion or go into this with a different mindset that isn't clearly communicated when they start the job. Guard training should be less about "How to PVP" and more about actually OOCly schooling them that they aren't meant to be the RP-Police that stops it all, but are meant to stop stupid things in places where those stupid things shouldn't happen, like Cellsvich.

Edit:
I forgot to mention that one huge problem with the Guards is not that they exist, but that they are a singular "Faction" that has unfair advantages over for example playermade factions. And Since Sigrogana (the continent) is the only place RP actively happens in public, this quickly becomes a turn off for lack of alternatives, and people feeling railroaded that the highest thing they can reach is being part of the guards.
Now this isn't really a "Guard issue", but the game desprately needs more avenues for people to go to and ACTIVELY do something that feels not like a complete waste of time or a chatroom, with other background.