Even though I love the multiplayer aspect of Eleven Table Tennis, from time to time I find myself looking for training tasks that can be done via single player. Recently I found a new VR table tennis game that fills this gap.
Introducing: Table Tennis Training Simulator, or T3S for abbreviation. In this article I will explain a few things that T3S offers.
Availability and Adapter Support
T3S is currently supported on both Pico and Meta Quest devices. It has position presets for almost all the SolidSlime adapters, as well as other good adapters like BonWasyl.
Physics
According to many players with ETT Elo above 3000, the physics of T3S is on par with Eleven VR. All the strokes feel very natural to execute.
Paddle Configuration
Most players would like to configure their paddle in order to make it suit their play style. The way to do that in T3S is very close to reality: you can select different options for blade (offensive/defensive…), rubber (tacky/non-tacky…), sponge (thickness and hardness…) individually via the UI. This makes it possible to configure the paddle based on the properties of the player’s real life racket.
In the official T3S discord server, there is a place where users are sharing their real life rackets and the in-game paddle configuration to match them.
Single Player Training Items
Since I was looking for single player training tasks, I have to mention that T3S provides 62 tasks, covering all the common TT techniques, serves and even has some for footwork training. All the tasks have very good human-recorded motion for both technique demo and the trainer. There are 186 stars to collect with an online leaderboard, which makes “grinding” the tasks a lot of fun.
You can practice against 48 different serves:
Below is a recording of me training against high spinny loop, which is a bane for a lot of players:
If you would like to play the shots to exact locations, the infinite target practice is a dream playground for that:
Other than the training tasks, there are numerous AI bots that can play in different styles (e.g. attack, defense, lob, different serves), all with human-recorded motion. One of the AI can even equip long pips!
Below is a recording of me practicing blocking against the “attack AI”:
Replay, Mirror Mode, Return Board etc.
These are all fantastic training features and they are all implemented with good quality in T3S.
- You can record your serve motion, and then either view it at slower speed, or play it back so you can return your own serve.
- You can play against yourself with either a delay or 0 delay (which makes it like juggling a ball, super fun).
- You can play against a return board which is set at customized angle and distance.
Multiplayer
At the moment T3S only has multiplayer on Pico. Their developers are planning to add a fully revamped multiplayer to Quest version as well. This is also why the price on Quest store is only 15 USD.
The Ultimate Question: T3S or ETT?
To me who love table tennis asa sport and want to get the most value out of VR training, the answer is actually very simple: Both games help.
T3S excels at single player training. It makes training a fun experience, with progress that is easy to observe.
ETT has a huge online player base, ranked ladder and tournaments with cash prize.
The physics in both games are both very close to reality and close to each other. It still can take some time to get used to the difference between them, but it’s not that hard.
Thus currently I am using T3S to fix the known “short boards” in my techniques, and then switch to ETT to play against real person. This has been doing very well for me and a few other players who are doing the same.