Truck Driving Proficiency / Nerd of the Road achievement

[Ansaaaaaaaaa]

Not sure if this is the correct forum or the topic should rather go to the feedback / suggestions forum, but I would like to talk about the Truck Driving Proficiency added to the Academy and the associated Nerd of the Road achievement.

The short version: It is absolutely awful and atrocious! Here's why:

While the first chapter is still a relative fair challenge, the other 2 chapters contain plain unfair challenges that have nothing to do with actual proficiency and skill, but just winging it over and over and over again, hoping you eventually be lucky and get it done! For example Nightmare Fuel Station: Blindly back into a parallel fuel station, back around a corner in a tight space and then proceed forward to the finish - all that within 2 minutes, only using interior camera and exactly 1 allowed direction change, which you need to proceed forward later. So you just send it, slam the trailer on the fuel station and pray it comes around in a position that allows you backing around the other corner without hitting anything during the turn - does this reckless maneuver resemble actual RL driving?

But there is more like that! For instance:

• Blind Decisions (180 seconds to blind-side park in a tight spot during rain where you can barely see anything with only allowed correction)
• Industrial delivery (blind-side backing into a narrow alley and then around another tight corner into the parking spot with a light pole in the middle of the area and you can only correct once)
• Blind Side Into a Cluttered Lot (Blind-side around a 130° corner into a narrow alley followed by another turn and only one allowed correction)

In RL you can lean around to see what is going on or get out of the truck and check or have somebody guide you in, yet here you are forced to do it from a static position where you can't properly see - if at all. So again it boils down to endless attempts you will get lucky at some point, which is super frustrating!

If that isn't bad enough, there is also Early Bird: This one requires you to back into a sideways-shifted parking spot from another parking spot, only to pull forward around an extremely tight corner into another extremely tight corner, so you can back around another corner into the final narrow parking spot - all that in under 3 minutes with only one allowed correction. Again endless frustrating attempts!

This wouldn't be that of an issue and I wouldn't bother doing it if somebody wouldn't have decided to create a Steam achievement which requires you to complete 23 out of the 26 under bonus conditions! The achievements have always been fair and doable, but here somebody clearly shot way past the mark unless the goal was to create maximum frustration trying to beat enough of those luck challenges!

Please either tune the challenges itself or reduce the number of required challenges for the achievement so you don't have to be a trucker god or have to spend endless hours of trying to have a chance on getting that achievement?

[Ansaaaaaaaaa]

So... after countless hours and attempts, I finally managed to get a 3-star rating for 23 lessons. This was hands-down the most unfun and frustrating moments I ever had in ATS! Fortunately, now I can do the same stuff again in ETS2...

I really wonder what the thought process behind these bonus challenges were. It feels like the consultants came up with sensible criteria for the base requirement which they consider a requirement for a skilled driver - and then somebody else came along and divided everything by 3 to crank the frustration level up to 11! Like Early Bird for instance: 3 minutes for 5 direction changes maneuvering through the tightest parking lot ever? Really?

And then you get bugs on top of it: In Twisted, I decided to pass the last obstacle (the two poles with the red guard rails around them) on the left, was carefully navigating between them - and failed because I hit nothing but thin air! The next time I decided to pass on the right side, drive close to the cones after the obstacle and am clearly within the boundaries of the track - and failed again because the game tells me I was out of bounds! BTW: Did anyone actually ever finished that with bonus requirements? Like under 4 minutes and no corrections? Pixel-perfect speedrunning the course that requires spot-on driving?

Anyway: Please don't these kind of challenges for the last part of the Driving Academy - or at least don't tie them to an achievement! Otherwise I might end up needing a new PC and window...

[Desperado]

For me, this isn't fair, as I'm supposed to drive without causing damage and therefore don't need a time limit, especially a tight one. I still want to be "restricted" in terms of the required number of corrections. Safe is one thing, fast is another - either safe or fast! Both together rarely work in real life.

The first few minutes in the new Driving Academy were really frustrating for me, and my frustration increased the further I lost time.
Just frustrating. I thought something good and goal-oriented was coming, like in the first part - but unfortunately, nothing.

This isn't "motorsport," even if in real life it's always against the clock!

The exercises may be really good and challenging, but please without any limits - just for practicing, learning, etc.

Best regards from an ex-trucker from Europe

[Driver441]

/

[Madkine]

You know the academy is not mandatory right?

[Angel_Arrow]

The Academy is, of course, not mandatory, but it comes with Steam Achievements, and for some players—including myself—collecting them is a passion. Does this mean it should all be easy? Absolutely not, but the current setup of the Academy completely misses the mark.

During SCS streams some time ago, Mark, the community manager, already hinted at a “competitive” aspect being added to the Academy. Many players in the chat, myself included, expressed their displeasure back then. After all, we’re talking about a truck simulator—a game that has brought calm and relaxation to countless households for years. Over time, SCS has continuously improved both games with new features, refined mechanics, and impressive graphics. But now, they’ve suddenly introduced a competitive element by tying challenges to time pressure. This goes against everything these games have always stood for.

I’m not saying the challenges are impossible, but they have little to do with simulating realistic driving conditions. In real life, you don’t perform such maneuvers under time pressure, let alone without the chance to step out and assess the situation around your truck.

Personally, I saw this debate coming from a mile away. It was inevitable that players would be unhappy with this implementation—not so much with the challenges themselves, but with the time pressure and limited options for correction or control. SCS made a wrong call here. Time pressure should have no place in this, especially not combined with such restricted control options.

In short, I believe this form of competition—whether against others or yourself—has no place in a truck simulator. If SCS insists on adding such elements, they should be far less intense. Much less intense.

I completed the original Academy lessons with great enjoyment, but I won’t even touch these new challenges. I knew that the moment SCS showcased them during their streams. I have no interest in this stress, no matter how much I regret missing out on the related achievements.

[Ansaaaaaaaaa]

You know the academy is not mandatory right?

That is only true if you don't care about Steam achievements. If you had 100% of the achievements before and would like to keep it that way, the driving academy is mandatory!

Like I said in my original post: All previous achievements were pretty much fair, even though some require a bit of luck to get the deliveries you need. However the "Nerd of the Road" achievement is not! Forcing players to complete 23 out of 26 3-star brutal hard bonus challenges that throw RL driving principles like safety out of the window and instead promote speeding and reckless driving is just way too much!

[Drive Safely]

@Angel_Arrow @Driver441 @Desperado @Ansaaaaaaaaa - I agree the time pressure is not that conducive to completing scenarios with all stars when there is also a limited amount of direction corrections.

Look how fast I have to reverse initially to complete the Reverse Slalom scenario in under 2 minutes. There's not a lot of leeway to really get out and assess the situation for most of the turns here.

(Yes, I have time to spare at the end, but that's only because I memorized the turns for the first half in order to complete that section briskly)

Watch on YouTube

[Adrian Zgripcea]

Interior camera is an obvious pick for one of the stars, but for the other two stars I would have went with something else instead of time and direction changes. For the Nerd of the Road achievement and the accessory rewards I would have picked obtaining a certain number of stars between all scenarios, to make it less of a grind.

Of course, you can always make yourself a little mod and increase the time limits or the max number of direction changes (and yes, you will still obtain the stars, achievement and rewards). But I can understand that doing so can take the fun away.

[Greycap]

I'm surprised that the're hasn't yet been anyone riding in on a high horse telling how they one shotted everything with three stars with a coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other, and that the rest of us just suck and are sour because achievements need actual skill for once. Such behaviour was already beginning to appear in the original Driving Academy discussions.

For me this might just be the point where my 100% achievement run ends. I had enough trouble with the first phase interior camera already because in most cases you can't see a thing, and have a life outside ATS so memorizing every movement to get them done and still needing a ton of luck doesn't sound like an option.