Communications Wheel Ideas

[languid wharf]

The Current Wheel

Currently, I feel that the communications wheel is a bit underutilized, well, about a 1/3rd of it I personally don't use much.

If I were to rank each part of the wheel in from most useful to least, it would look like this:

• Thank You 👍 : The best one on here. Used to express gratitude for heals, helping secure a kill, and overall just helps keep the morale of the team good and lively.

• Yes ✅ : Pretty much the same vibe as thank you, but has the added utility of being able to answer questions if you're in a party or Discord call and you are muted.

• Caution: ⚠️ Used to signify places of danger or enemy locations during combat, much better visually than the default ping. 📍

• SOS 🆘 : The effectiveness of this one scales with how well your team listens to you and coordinates. Aside from that, it's a good visual indicator on the mini map/large map to show where exactly you need help at.

• Group Up ⏫: Same thing as SOS.

• No ❌ : It has its use case of being able to answer questions if you're in a party or Discord call and you are muted just like Yes ✅ , but aside from that not much utility.

• Defend Here 🛡️ and Attack Here ⚔️ are rarely used I feel, the regular targetting pings are already sufficient enough to use in combat, and tbh it doesn't seem like anybody really listens to "Defend Here" but maybe I can be corrected in that regard. I feel that these two should be removed or replaced with better ones, some of which I will propose shortly in the next section.

Some New Ideas I Have

As for new ways to change or maybe even overhaul the comm wheel, I have my own ideas, but I also want to see what the community would like to be added.

But I will propose my own new quick-comms first:

• Need Healing! 🇨🇭: Self-explanatory. Being able to differentiate between SOS and Need Healing provides just slightly more clarity to indicate who needs to be healed and who needs additional firepower.

• My ability is ready/not ready : Also self-explanatory. Just helps with clarity in knowing who has their abilities on standby and who has theirs on cooldown. Can be especially useful when you want to coordinate with the infamous Alpha beam combo where you are a Siren with a freeze or a Grim with a snare.

• -# This one is useful especially for those who are support players and always have teammates who shoot at you for heals when they don't realize you have it on cooldown

• On my mark! 3 2 1 🕓 : This one I'm not sure how effective it will be, but I'm putting this in here regardless---This quick-comm allows for placing of a timer at a specific location, generally used to coordinate pushes or entry onto a beacon or warp probe. Please see the VALORANT video I attached to see (0:10 timestamp)

• Sorry! : Sometimes I make mistakes, and I want to apologize to my teammate. This one just helps express your emotions much more clearer for those moments

• No Problem! : Can be used to respond to Sorry! or Thank You! Or just be used as a general reassurance statement for the team I guess

• (Dynamic quick-comm) Healing here! 🇨🇭: This quick-comm only appears in your wheel if you are a Tyr or Ceres, or whether you are a Matriarch. It will be extremely convenient to call out to your teammates that you have healing available, similar to "my ability is ready" but much more clear for healers on the field.

• Fall Back!/Retreat! ⏬ : Self-explanatory, used for whenever you want to disengage from a combat zone and reposition, especially on spearhead.

-# Also do note that all of these are assumed to have an internal cooldown so that it is not excessively spammed in matches, and if a player is still being too spammy with the quick-communications, they should cease if you mute them in game through the muting feature.

I took much of my inspiration from the game VALORANT where they have a much more sophisticated ping wheel/communications wheel system.

One is a more simplified version with 4 options to choose from during combat (similar to what we have in WRF atm). You can also bind these to a keybind if preferred, for instance you can bind the "On My Mark" quick comm to F6.

The second one is for general communication. There are 3 categories to choose from, using mouse wheel up or down to switch between modes ---tactical, combat, and social. Specific comms cannot be bound to specific keys unlike the first version, I think it is designed purely for the wheel selection only.

But in WRF we could have the system slightly different to where we have the ability to bind specific ones we like.

Communications Wheel Examples
Source: VALORANT

Keybind menu for comms wheel
Source: VALORANT

I am also open to other ways to change the comms wheel / quick-comm ideas that you would like to see added---within reason of course. It has to have a valuable use-case within WRF.

[slow nexus]

That would be much better wheel then what we have now

[rose bronze]

i think something like "no problem" should be added too in case you just helped someone and he said "thank you"

[fringe flame]

group up I've used a lot as a healer. I would suggest a "heals here" type of thing

[sinful bison]

I agree and i have a few healing bots i always heal them when possible but i really really hates it when people are shooting on my it works not right for my than i am nore happy to walk to someone else that needs healing people that commands like that gives my the feeling that the think the are great and we are trash i dont help players like that its annoying you find inside every game joke players like that many times also big mouth on mic but when people are friendly i always help them so long as the also respect everyone else from your current team

Ofcours i shoot my guns empty sometimes on the ground for reloading but i never shoot on friendly ones

[reef lantern]

the ability not ready is really needed rn

[chilly cairn]

I want a retreat!