Navigating Corners Online: The Driving Line / People’s Names / Map

[Hastatus]

Navigating corners is the key to victory. There are many ways to do so: experience, monkey-see-monkey do, and various assists. Some are against the use of the driving line and others are for it. I personally do use it but only for its brake indicator which is more conveniently seen than the downshift indicator (being especially useful when frequently switching cars, PP/HP, race types, etc); otherwise I do not use it as an optimal driving line in the slightest since I know most tracks well. Generally speaking I can drive without it.

But I do find that I come to miss it in one very important way: when the driving line is disabled in an online room I often fine myself looking around and above cars in front of me to see approaching corners but people’s damn, often overlapping names are often in my way, interfering with my depth perception. Names never bothered me until I played without the driving line. I would really like to have an option to toggle names on and off like ghosts. Do others not find the names often wider than the cars themselves an unnecessary distraction blocking the view of what is coming (especially when dealing with approaching corners at high speeds)?

Also, I wonder about the map. If we [room hosts] can disable the driving line, shouldn’t we [room hosts] be able to disable the map? Isn’t the map as much as or more of a ‘cheat’ / assist than the driving line? Especially when dealing with blind corners or hilly turns? I would think the map should be disabled before the driving line. Personally I never use the map because I find it distracting, but I know it is useful for the random generated tracks and I’m sure many people do use it to their advantage. I'm not saying it's wrong to use, but I'm saying it should be treated in the same manner as other assists.

 

[benda18]

Why don't they just put the PSN ids below the cars instead of above? Seems like it wouldn't affect vision at all below.

 

[BrandonW77]

You can turn the map off if you wish. Some time when you're on track, hit the pause button and next to the "quit" button there is an icon for "quick options". You have to be on track to get this menu when you pause. Go in there and it gives you a couple options for the map, making it bigger/making it smaller/making it go away.

In all honesty, I believe using the driving line in the first place is what's causing you problems more than the floating names. If you always play with the driving line off, then when you practice you will learn to find identifying marks on the track that you use as braking/entry points. Sometimes it's a mark on the wall, sometimes it's a distance sign, sometimes it's a line on the track or a tree along side of the track. None of those things can be blocked by the floating PSN ID. But the main thing is that you should be paying more attention to the sides of the track to find your mark and not be worried about what's in front of the car that's in front of you. If you know your marks then you should already know what's ahead of that car and know how to act appropriately. 👍

 

[Hastatus]

You can turn the map off if you wish.

In all honesty, I believe using the driving line in the first place is what's causing you problems more than the floating names. 👍

I was talking about the host being able to disable everyone's map.

Maybe: but I'll never be a driver who watches the blurry sides of the road instead of where I'm going. I've driven too much in real life to change my habits of how I perceive depth.