[Updated] Take Battle Communication to the Next Level!

Greetings, Commanders!

The current in-battle communication system in World of Tanks hasn’t undergone a change in years. Some options are a bit limited and, at times, incapable of helping teammates communicate or share plans and tactics in battle effectively.

At the same time, the existing notification system often sends information without context. For example, a lot of player feedback has mentioned how minimap pings can have a variety of meanings. They often create a mess of unclear information that confuses allies.

After studying your suggestions, we decided to rework and improve the existing in-battle communication system to make it clearer, more informative, and more efficient. Here’s how it will work.

A Single Key for All Actions

Now you can use the "T" key in almost all battle communications. It may be used to interact with the terrain, teammates, enemies, bases, and existing communication markers. Tap this key to immediately send a ping to your teammates. Hold the key to display a ping wheel with more options. Work with allies, flank enemies, call off attacks, and hone your team’s tactics!

Interacting With Map Objects

While the timer counts down to the start of the battle, you can inform your teammates where you’ll be going by interacting with special markers. They highlight the main points of interest on the map and help you decide where you can catch the enemy by surprise.

You’ll also see how many allies plan to go to the same location. This will help you to better coordinate with your team and get a clearer understanding of what to do in battle. As a result, you'll be able to launch more effective attacks and act more harmoniously with your teammates.

You can easily interact with all objects on the map, including stones, buildings, bushes, etc. Instead of clicking on the minimap or writing in chat, feel free to highlight a specific point of the battle locale. A ping sign visible to all your teammates will appear both on the map and the minimap.

Now you can call attention to a specific enemy or ally directly, as well as their corresponding tank labels, which are now interactive. Thanks to this feature, you can interact with vehicles that are hidden behind obstacles, blocked by objects on the map, or positioned outside your direct line of sight.

A dot will appear over any interactable label showing that you can interact with it.

You don’t need to aim at the target with your reticle–just position it in the center of the screen.

Adding Context and Meaning to Pings

It's no big secret that a large number of random pings in battle sometimes results in information overload, which then distracts you from what’s taking place on the battlefield. Previously, it was sometimes difficult to understand what a specific ping meant. Now you’ll be able to use two types of markers to give more context to a ping: "attention here" and "moving there".

Any player can respond to your ping by committing to it. Next to each ping, the number of committed allies will be displayed. Committing to other players' pings will reduce the amount of uncertainty and add visibility to your teammates’ actions.

You can also send a command to a teammate and receive feedback in response.

Personal reply options to allies will be shown in a separate heads-up display that allows you to quickly reply using the "Z" button.

Interacting With the Minimap

You can pin a point to the minimap to draw the attention of your allies to a zone by left-clicking, or to show your intention to move to a certain location by right-clicking.

Commanders playing in SPGs can notify their allies as to which point (or zone) they’re going to attack. To do this, either left-click on the minimap when in strategic mode, or ping for attention when in regular mode. The CTRL + right-click command remains unchanged.

Bases on the minimap and in the battle will have special interactive icons. Now it will be easier for you to give commands to capture or defend a base.

Adaptive Command Wheel

We will also rework the command wheel to make it adapt to what or who you ping, be it terrain, enemies, or allies. The two “lower” commands (“Help!” and “Reloading!”) will be fixed and the “upper” ones will change depending on the context of the action. You will also be able to say “Thank you” to your teammate or respond to their commands. To do this, hold the “T” or “Z” key.

Terrain

Enemy

Ally

Thanks to this adaptive system, the range of available commands will be simplified, making it much more convenient for you to interact with the command wheel.

Updated Quick Commands

The in-game commands that can be given using the F-keys will also change. A command will now depend on the context of the object you are looking at while giving the command.

Personal Messages and Replies

Personal reply options to allies will be shown in a separate heads-up display that allows you to quickly reply using the "Z" button.

Spam Protection

To avoid ping spamming in battles, we’re introducing special spam protection that works according to the following rules:

• Any message that is triggered has a delay until the same message can be triggered again. This delay is 5 seconds for global commands and 2 seconds for personal messages (3 seconds if sent to the same player). The only exception is the “Attention to” marker that can be placed up to 3 times by the same player in a short period of time before it is blocked. Only 3 “Attention to” markers can exist at the same time per team.
• When setting a new marker, the previous one from the same player will disappear and will be replaced with a new one. If no one is committed to the marker, it will disappear after 6 seconds.
• Players cannot receive more than one personal reply proposition within 15 seconds and not more than 1 voiceover from personal messages within 10 seconds.

We’re still working on the spam protection system, so these specific values may be adjusted later based on your feedback.

You can also disable new non-verbal communications for a particular player with the "Add to your Blacklist" or "Block for this battle" options in the player list.

Game Settings

The Battle Communication system can be easily adjusted to your needs, so feel free to change its keybinds or hide specific elements in the game settings.

The Battle Communication 2.0 system will be available for consideration and preliminary testing during the first Common Test of Update 1.10. Join the test and share your feedback to help us further improve this important feature!