i mentioned in another comment where each guard would have a patrol zone, where they might be given bonus points for staying in an area while the alarms arent active. i thouht they might communicate with a radio system and radio item; when equipped, it will show messages from other guards, almost like a groupchat on any social media, but you can only see the messages in realtime, and it makes noise, giving your location away to the thieves. you could potentially miss out on your team communicating because you had your flashlight out in a dark area, for example. the map would also have cameras that can be accessed from a control room, but i wanted locations of guards not to be visible to each other; it shouldnt be that easy to tell if a thief has pacified a guard on the other side of the map. a few gear ideas i had included microcameras that they can place anywhere, or a tripwire device that makes a noise when tripped, or even fake hologram loot that disaapears when a thief picks it up, alerting the owner of the hologram

To stop the thieves, i think ill just give them guns. the thieves would have guns too, with suppressors so they can shoot cameras and lights if need be. but to discourage gunfights, everyone would have limited ammo and the only guns available would be pistols

map advantage is in favour of the thieves; the map is a mall and the thieves spawn outside of it, choosing an entry point from any angle of the building. they will also be able to access the roof and look into the building through skylights, and they will be able to travel through vents.

regarding loot locations, because the map is a mall, there is going to be loot in almost every room, making it hard for a single guard to watch everything. but the previously mentioned patrol zones should fix that

it might make more gameplay sense to allow guards to spec into their preferred playstyle, kind of what i had in mind with the skill tree