I'm afraid to turn the braking line off...thoughts?

Forza Motorsport Legacy Motorsport FM7 Discussion
1

So…this is the first Forza that I started to take a bit more seriously. I went from an absolutely trash player that you’d hate to lobby with, using all assists, to turning off all assists (besides normal steering and braking line) and becoming half way decent (If I may say so)…

Thing is, I want to finally turn the braking line off, but…I’ve done it like 3 or 4 times for about 15 minutes and I just feel retarded. I know that’s to be expected but man I really feel like 75% of the progress I made just goes completely out the window.

I know the answer to this is just suck it up. However, I’m wondering if maybe some of you guys have had a similar experience. How did it go? Do you actually feel like you’ve become better with it off or is it just a “removing the crutches” deal for you? About how long did it take you to adapt? Etc.

I saw another post related to this but with just 1 guy’s experience. Let me know what you guys think. I’d love some input. =)

2

I’ve done some rivals events and used some mods that turn the braking line off. You’ve got to pay attention to what you’re doing. If your attention slips, then it’s going to go badly.

The alternative is rote memorization of every track and where the braking zones are. And some players do that, and some of those Youtube experts out there insist that’s what you have to do. Which, hey, I get that, I respect that, and I’m able to do it for a few tracks. But I’m not a Twitch streamer who plays games for a living. I have other things going on in my life.

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3

You’ve gotta do it. I was terrified too but it’s so much better without braking line. You have to do several test laps and learn your braking points before a race. And yes, you have to use distance signs and other environmental markers to know where to brake. It’s not really any harder than switching to manual and makes racing so much better.

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4

I’ve raced in Forza without any helping lines since FM5, and it’s definitely made me a better driver.
It makes driving so much more immersive, as you need to learn where to brake. It’s always a good idea to be careful on the first lap on any track, and braking earlier than you think is necessary is recommended. You can then adjust and brake later on the following laps.

At this point, I just don’t understand the people who complain about Forza Motorsport not being enough like a sim, only to find out a lot of those complaints come from players who use the lines… Go figure.

Sure, it’s up to each player to use the assists they want to make it fun for them, but to hear pro-sim players complain and still use the lines is like hearing a real-life racer complain about a slow car while still having the parking brake engaged.

Sorry about the rant. I hope you really give it a shot. If you do, I doubt you’ll ever go back. Good luck!

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5

Persevere and you’ll be faster with braking line off. Practice the track until you know your breaking points. Start early and try to push the braking limit. Once this is nailed you’ll be quicker than following the braking line. It can take time. Sometimes you’ll learn a track in under 10 laps and on some tracks it takes much more but I see that as a part of the game.

6

Turning off the braking line requires 3 things:

  • You must know the track well enough that you can intuitively know when to brake. Sometimes you can use parts of the environment as markers to tell you when to brake. Sometimes, you can just get a feel for it without specific brake markers. Sometimes you just know.

  • You must know your car well enough that you can efficiently and smoothly brake and accelerate. Also, you need to be well-versed in how to correct the car when you lose control. When you miss a braking point, or you slip off the track, you need to be able to calmly and quickly adjust course.

  • You must be constantly aware of your surroundings. The braking line can encourage a bit of absent-mindedness, since the game will warn you when you’re making a mistake. Without it, you’re only going to have very subtle clues that you have missed a braking point or you’re veering out of the lane.

But, if you can manage those 3 things, you can become quite a bit faster. The braking line is very conservative, and you can definitely take faster lines and brake later and harder than the line will instruct you. It takes a long, LONG time to practice and get good at driving without the braking line. But IMO, it makes the game way more satisfying.

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The depth of this game is incredibly bad, would not recommend. Just compare this game to any other sim and how you see the corners approaching. most of the time I’m driving blind with memory of the track and use the braking line as a reference only. There’s nothing wrong with using it as your reference point but don’t use it to actually see where to start braking. I also still use other reference points when the braking line is terrible.

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The transition is easier if you start with rivals mode. You’ll be forced to relearn brake points but you should be able to pick up on most rather easily. The hard part are some corners with literally no visual cues. Repetition is really the only advice here.

Do not really on shadows!!! Weather conditions can alter where shadows are located or they are gone completely.

Once you learn some tracks well, turn the brake line back on and you’ll see how accurate or inaccurate the line may be. It’s pretty interesting in some spots.

Once you get used to it, switching back and forth between line or no line shouldn’t be much of an issue. You’ll probably be faster on some tracks with no line and slower on others. It happens.

I also don’t recommend dropping the line if you are just trying to chill and race or if you get distracted easily (in my case). It can be really mentally draining if you are forcing yourself to drive with no line.

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9

What really helped me race without the line on is endurance races.

I’d go into freeplay, select my car class ( which was always GT cars) selected a track I liked or wanted to improve on, and selected a difficulty for the AI. This is important, you don’t want to have the AI too easy so you just blow past everyone, you want to set it so that the first bunch of AI are easy but start to get more difficult up around 5th place and up. The point of this is you get practice passing the slower AI and learn when to and when not to go for a pass and when you get further up the field you will learn how to race in a pack and brake accordingly. Often times in multiplayer your view to the corner or an object you use as a braking marker will be blocked by the car ahead forcing you to go by faith or by the car’s brake lights coming on. Endurance racing with the AI will help you with situations like these, although the AI brakes in stupid places sometimes.

I suggest practicing with the line off in single player until you get the hang of it, that way you won’t be a havoc in multiplayer

Also, watch real races. These help a lot if you are having trouble with certain turns. Doing this helped me with Andretti Hairpin and The Corkscrew at Laguna Seca, Turn 1 at Nurburgring GP and a bunch of other turns.

Just keep at it

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What really helped me race without the line on is endurance races.

I’d go into freeplay, select my car class ( which was always GT cars) selected a track I liked or wanted to improve on, and selected a difficulty for the AI. This is important, you don’t want to have the AI too easy so you just blow past everyone, you want to set it so that the first bunch of AI are easy but start to get more difficult up around 5th place and up. The point of this is you get practice passing the slower AI and learn when to and when not to go for a pass and when you get further up the field you will learn how to race in a pack and brake accordingly. Often times in multiplayer your view to the corner or an object you use as a braking marker will be blocked by the car ahead forcing you to go by faith or by the car’s brake lights coming on. Endurance racing with the AI will help you with situations like these, although the AI brakes in stupid places sometimes.

I suggest practicing with the line off in single player until you get the hang of it, that way you won’t be a havoc in multiplayer

Also, watch real races. These help a lot if you are having trouble with certain turns. Doing this helped me with Andretti Hairpin and The Corkscrew at Laguna Seca, Turn 1 at Nurburgring GP and a bunch of other turns.

Just keep at it

11

I have never used a braking line, been playing since the first Forza. What I did was found a class I really enjoyed (B class currently) and you’ll start to learn where your own braking markers are per track in any car givien your braking upgrades and weight of the vehicle. Practice makes perfect. Ditch the line, never look back, stay determined to learn something new, be awesome for the rest of your life. you won’t regret it once you’ve become comfortable.

12

The beginning of curbing/rumble strips on the outside edge at the tracks that have them is usually a good place to begin braking. Not always, but often enough to get you close. Also, look for where the corner begins to rubber up. Where it begins to darken. Those two visual cues are usually consistent for one racing game to another. They may differ in where signs and other trackside objects are placed, but curbing and rubbered in zones are constant.

All part of leaning a track. Toughest one for me in this game is T1 at the Indy road course. There’s nothing there to use as a major cue. No signs. No rubbered zone. No curbing. My only cue is there is a set of caution lights on the catch fence before the corner. I count about a second after passing that before I brake.

Like others have said, offline practice is key… A handful of tries isn’t making much of an effort, to be honest. Takes much more than that. Try a corner. If you blow it, turn around, go back to the previous corner, get back up to speed and try again. Then onto the next corner.

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13

A lot of good advice here, I hope this all helps the poster.

One tip I would offer. If your goal is to move towards multi-player, you will not be able to rely on the orange cones and the distance markers (400ft, 300 ft, 200 ft 100 ft) that are placed immediately alongside the track in the grass median. There is almost no chance that they will survive the length of the race. (most won’t survive lap one). As you come back around for another lap, some, many or all of the markers will have been mowed down by another player. Sebring is a good example of this.

Use the brake markers and cones while you are learning the braking points (Rivals or single player), but also have a secondary, permanent marker picked out as well - rumble strips, advertising on the outside wall, break in the fence, crack in the pavement. Many tracks will place the brake marker boards on the fence, approaching the corner (Watkins Glen, Le Mans etc). From the middle of the pack, your view of your primary marker may be blocked, having that secondary marker is essential.

In the long run, you will benefit from having the line off, as it allows you to focus further down the road, which will make you faster in the end.

Good luck!

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14

I do real-life grass roots motorsport, but I still use the breaking line in race games - including Forza. Here’s why:

1: Without 3D or VR, there is no depth perception. So distance judgement is not possible, The narrow FOV compared to real life make brake markers really tricky to use in a game.
2: Time. I have a busy life outside of Xbox, so at best I can maybe get a couple hours a week game time. If I try to learn brake points on a flat 2D screen, it would take weeks or months per track/car combination.
3: I dont care what other people do or claim is the right way. I play as I want to play, its none of their business.
4: I want to enjoy the game and the spectacle of smooth 4K racing in single player. I found the most enjoyable setup as all assists off, manual shift without clutch and braking line only.
5: I dont stick to the same car all the time, so new car would mean new brake points and another long stint of learning I dont have time for.

Play it how you want. If you want to learn to play with no braking line, cool. If you feel its not for your, cool too. I would bet experts are right, turn off braking line and find your own would produce quicker lap times and produce a great sense of achievement but it wont be easy or quick.

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My only problem at the moment is that I’m rather skeptical when people say that you will ultimately end up a “faster driver” after mastering the whole brake line off thing.

Does anyone else feel this way? If so, why?

I know other people posted this in this thread but since I’ve been using the braking line (since the start of Forza 7 up until 4 days ago) I should’ve been more clear in explaining that I didn’t use the braking line as the “optimal line”. Because, well, it obviously isn’t. Not only have I not used it as the optimal line, but as we all know it is completely wrong in some cases.

^I generally used it as a marker / suggestion of when I should brake, and then I followed what I myself thought to be a more precise line.

I’m improving rather quickly with the braking line off after these last several days so don’t get me wrong, but…

The level of “skill” I was at before this was pretty decent. Now, “pretty decent” I understand is rather vague. So to be more precise: I currently hold top 1-3% for most of the Rivals events I’ve completed (about 30 of them), and I’ve managed this always in A class with a non-optimal car (The Ferrari 360 CS), which I believe I hold the records for the fastest time in a 360 CS for 9/10 of those events (for what that’s worth, which isn’t much considering there are so many cars to choose from)… If I play in a multiplayer lobby, unless I get smashed into in the first corner and wipe out completely, it’s an extreme rarity that I’m not in at least the top 3, if not 1st (which also, I know doesn’t mean very much considering the other players in regular hoppers aren’t very good).

BUT, this is all with the braking line ON so…

Without blabbering on more, It’s my hope that eventually I will be able to make these times (and improve them) regardless of what car I’m driving or what class I’m in.

So…if I may ask an additional question to the people in this thread (or maybe those that haven’t posted yet)…Have any of you gotten to the point where you’ve had the braking line off, but if you were to turn your braking line on, see NO improvement whatsoever? (Or even a worsening in lap times)

And god please say yes lol (without lying of course haha), because having the braking line on for me makes the game seem so corny to me; less immersive. Like…let’s say I show my races to someone that knows nothing about the game…for them to see the braking line on would look to them like I have a “crutch” setting on and isn’t nearly as impressive as with it off.

So yeah anyway, without going on further and turning this into a TL;DR, let me know what you guys think.

Thanks.

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Um, the ferrari 360 is a LB handling car. It’s far from being non-optimal. Also being in the top 1% means nothing because there are several tiers in the top 1% as well.

That being said, no it will NOT make you a faster driver and it never will. The braking line is for reference only, no one is actually stopping where the braking line tells you to and you need to spend months practicing in Forza to do that because of like others and myself have said, the depth of field in this game is non-existent so you cannot judge distance correctly for this. Example, I can race in GT Sport with only the cones on, I can still turn them off and not have any issues. Same for iRacing. I can hop right in and play. Why? Because I can see the corners coming a mile away and I can judge the distance accurately to brake where I think I need to without failure. This game? I can only do that after I run multiple laps of practice and for every single car the braking point is different. So there is absolutely no point in doing it and even the best use the braking line so there you go.

Don’t waste your time doing something because other people think a certain way, just do what you want to do.

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Yes, you’re certainly correct. I should have worded that differently. The 360 CS is certainly a very good car so I didn’t want to make it sound like I was making great lap times in a bicycle in R class. What I meant by non-optimal is the cars like the Lotus 340R (which I’ll admit I’m kind’ve salty that you’re able to use cars like that in Rivals…It makes the dream of hitting a top 5 slot in virtually any car I enjoy impossible; or ANY other car for that matter.)

Also, I want to be clear that I wasn’t trying to boast my superior driving prowess in that paragraph=p No one likes a bragger and I was simply trying to give the thread a reasonable idea of my current skill level. I do realize that there’s (as you say), almost a “last place to 97th percentile → 98-99th percentile → then the top 0.1%, and finally the elite 0.01%” tier list, and that the top 0.1% and 0.01% are thousands of hours ahead of me in terms of practice and skill.

Anyways, good news, I’m finally committed to seeing this through thanks to you guys. I still have a long way to go but I went from driving straight into the tire wall on every turn several days ago to not being a bother whatsoever to anyone in a multiplayer lobby. I can see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel now.

Thanks a ton guys. I wasn’t expecting so many in-depth responses, tips, and opinions. I’m truly grateful.

Also, I’m always looking for more friends and people to race with so feel free to message me any time on Xbox Live My tag is the same, “TestTube GT”.

Cheers =)

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I agree, I also didn’t see you as a bragger I was just pointing that out because there are many people who don’t get that. So when you say that you’re below the 1%tile at any time, that’s pretty slow to me IMO because the difference between myself and the best is quite massive. But I can still somewhat compete in a race pushing it to the limit where every single mistake is pushed atm, but still no match for them in the long run which is good enough for me.

That being said, some LB cars are completely broken, like the isetta in class B, the lightweight GT40 or the P4 in class S, the miata in the lower classes, etc. Their acceleration meters are lies, the car is lightweight and accelerates faster than what the meter says it can. So in a sense the game is broken.

The real question is what your goals are, if you just want to be fast then leave the line on, no point in turning it off. Instead, hop into a training session with someone to see your flaws or go into freeplay and practice. The biggest difference between the best and myself is the acceleration point of my cars being later than theirs and weight transfer, as an example. But I can pick these things out because I’m at that level I can know every single mistake as I’m making them. The problem is that just because you know you are making a mistake, does not mean that you have the skill to correct it so you have to practice even more until you can do that.

I was in the same situation in trackmania united for example, where I can compete with the best, but the very best are still out of my league, but I can still keep pace with them I just push too hard at times and crash too much. But comparing myself to how I race this year to last year is no contest. I’m not only more consistent but faster. But I’m not the only one who has gotten faster, they have too. All of the older LB times that were fast as hell are being beaten again. So you have to keep that in mind that just because you are improving does not mean that those better than you are also not improving as well.

It all comes down to how much effort you’re willing to put into something and what your true peak is. Some people will peak out before others do so that’s just something to keep in mind.

Also don’t just practice your speed, practice your racing techniques and your attacks on corners. Some examples of this is sticking your nose up someone in time before the braking zone to prevent them from using the apex to their full advantage. This is important to use if you’re in a car with less handling or you can do this to a car that’s a speed build to overtake them. it can go both ways. Also pay attention to whether or not people are using a defensive line. If so, give some space and take the corner as wide as possible to get more speed to try and overtake them later. A lot of people don’t do this, but you will see top players and players like myself do this to overtake people. I may not be the fastest, but most people have an extremely difficult time passing me because I know how to drive defensively, so unless you know how to attack me properly, it’s going to be difficult to pass me cleanly. So don’t just focus on your racing speed but how you pass people as well. Racing is like a game of chess that you are playing with other players and you need to use the techniques at your disposal to outsmart people.

19

That’s enough reason to leave it off right there. Using the braking line won’t make you a better (or worse) driver, and if you enjoy the game more without it you’re doing yourself a disservice by keeping it on. Yes, there’ll be a bit of a learning curve as you get used to using other reference points, but once you have a feel for it there won’t be a difference in your lap times either way. Also consider: If you play with the line off, you’ll get better with it off. If you play with it on, you’ll get better with it on. Practice how you want to play.

20

It really depends what your end goal is. Hot Lapping is completely different than racing against other opponents, whether AI or Multiplayer Online. If your goal is to be competitive online I would say IMO to turn the braking line off and don’t look back. By doing so you get a better understanding of what your current skill level is capable of. While hot lapping you can use as much of the track as legally possible to maintain your pace, but when you are racing against an opponent you will be constantly facing an ever changing landscape of the track with opponents fighting for positions and or yourself fighting for the position.

If you make it a practice of never using the braking line, overtime you become accustomed to what you can do with a particular car/track combination. Maybe you wanna pass an opponent on the outside of a particular turn, having ran many laps with no braking line you will almost instantly know if that pass is achievable or if you are going to overshoot the turn and off the car in the grass.

Granted all this comes with much practice and many laps on a particular track, but over time you will see that you will have much more confidence entering a corner without the braking line. Besides that your exit speed from each corner is never going to be exactly the same, so the next approaching corner will be slightly differently (on a Per Lap basis). I also agree with others about never using cones, distance markers, shadows etc. They won’t be there most likely on your next lap.

I personally have never used any sort of braking line or what not, other than to see what it looked like a handful of times on particular tracks. I don’t use track references for the most part either. I mostly just gauge the speed/handling characteristics of the car I am in and how fast the corner is approaching and brake accordingly.

As far as seeing a difference between having it on and off, the few times I had it on, I maybe would see an improvement in one corner. Lets say a stickler corner that always gives you problems, but with enough laps that corner would be equalized with it off eventually.

Bottom Line is with it off you will get faster over time. Maybe not across the board on every single track, but you will come across tracks that you know very well and can execute every corner with precision and when those tracks appear in an Online Lobby you can have a feast.

Good luck with whatever you decide, and like another poster said above, ultimately choose whichever makes you happiest, fastest, or provides you with the most fun while racing in FM7. When it comes down to it everybody is different and we can only provide you with our own individual experiences and opinions, there is no right or wrong way. Cheers!