I have played this game for 2 years. It was always a very fun time, i didn't spend much and enjoyed that i could still contribute by cleaning enemy land and Destroying forts. I was able to hold my own in epic fights that could last hours. With the new update its all changed. I am still able to fight somewhat well currently and hold my own, i understand the new fighting system and it makes sense. But now i have to add 4 commander's into one army. That used to be 4 separate armies i could send out to different places and do different task. Now they are all stuck together and all lose stamina when you move. That means i can be in only one place doing one task at a time, not to mention the movement speed is now slower. I had to cobbke togheter 4 new commanders that are worthless because i never invested in them much to be able to do one additional task a day. I have no idea how i am supposed to farm land or level up my commanders now. Building roads will be a nightmare. Breaking control points is going to be a nightmare. It will take 4 times as long to do anything. This update really has been unenjoyable so far and makes the contribution of anyone who cant fight as well much less. For now i am leaving 1 star until these issues are addressed, will update if they are
I’ve been playing this game for a few months now. Following up with updates, content creators, the discord, and even doing my own research with fellowship mates and friends. I love the game. If you’re looking for a decent war game that requires strong communications and teamwork, with a play style similar to risk but with more interaction then this is the game you should try. Now my only complaint would be how it is advertised to be non pay to win. That is unfortunately a blatant lie. I am not against paying to unlock extra items and I enjoy the season pass rewards. But there is a clear difference in what a Free to Play player is capable of and what someone who spends hundreds (or in the case of our server thousands) on mathoms is capable of. Respect 10 equipment is nearly impossible to get for free to play players let alone upgrade them but you added it as a major feature in season 2 and beyond. All I’m saying is I would love to see some deserved respect and support of your free to play or low spender players. Stop catering towards those who spend massive amounts to gain fully upgraded equipment with the best stats and abilities for multiple commanders. I hope you see this and genuinely consider my input as I’ve seen already some decent response to the community and additions like the new red book challenges. TLDR: Awesome, Risk-like multiplayer, war strategy game that is outfitted in LOTR theme. Needs to balance Free to Play and Pay to Win.
This game is super fun! So far, I’ve been playing non stop for 2 weeks. Easy game to play in between tasks at work or around the house. For us long time LOTR fans, this game is incredible for a mobile game. I have a few recommendations for developers. - it would be really fun to have a ‘grand exchange’ where we can trade items with other players across the server (much like RuneScape) - would be sweet if we could send resources (wood, stone, grain etc. To other members of our fellowship/faction) - I would like clarification as to whether mobs have special (rare drops) or not. This would increase incentive and exponentially increase the fun factor. -have no idea what a craftsman’s contract does… still, as there is no description. Just a side note. I feel that the pay to play features imbalance the game just a tad bit as players have access to so much more (gems, mathom box etc. Though I understand it’s importance. Thanks! Will provide more feedback as I continue my conquest for middle earth! Update: game still fun. -NEED REAL TIME (in-game) language translator; it is a headache to go back and forth translating language with every player. Amazing that we are all from around the world but it would be helpful to have this tool in game.
So, when they first came out this sort of strategy mobile game flooded the market. Most of them are just blatant rip offs of each other and have the exact same pattern on overcrowded menus and way too much stuff to pay attention to and it was all hidden behind a pay wall anyway so no one wanted to play them. This game however, is so nice and neatly packaged and it’s so user-friendly and even though it has a lot of the same overcrowded menus it’s all packaged much more neatly in that your castle only has really five buttons that you need to focus on and then you need to worry about your commanders and units. This as opposed to the other games that make you focus on 1 million different things all at once. Not to mention that it’s packaged in a lord of the rings skin which is absolutely fantastic. And also, at least for now, the game is not paid to win. I’ve seen just as many people playing for free doing really well as I have people who spent $100 on it already and have roughly the same stuff as those who work hard for it. My only criticism is that I wish there were more tips and, honestly, more commanders. But other than that this is a great game and I highly recommend it!
I have played the game from almost the start. It has been super fun and loved the game & lore. As a Free to play it took forever to unlock my first T3 commander and as a result my best commanders respect lvl wise are T1. The 2.0 update feels like a slap in the face and even more so for my paying friends. My Grima took forever to get to R13 along with R10’s for Khaldoon & Ugthak. The update dropped them & gave some respect items, not the amount that raised them to their previous levels. At least I didn’t have it as hard as my friend who had Grima at R22 and it dropped to 10. So far on day one it feels like they thought long and hard on how to screw over the players and did that. The game has always been about speed, tile taking, and the fights. Now having to use more than one commander to take on even a lvl 30 mob feels wrong (commander is lvl 35 and was easily fighting them before update). I was really hoping version 2 would hone the masterful game we had. And give features & improvements to the almost perfect system…. But alas not. So at least at the time of writing I am giving it a go, but I probably will sadly hang up my Elven bow & sheath my Uruk sword and morn the game that was and could have been. I am giving it a 3 star for the great game it was, if it was just the changes I would give a 1 star.
Gameplay is fun, honestly, but updates have been aggravating
***Dec 29:*** UPDATE: After week off I retried downloading and something was patched that allowed me to log in again. Apparently many players had been booted off as well. The irony was that the update which caused all this was the “yule” holiday expansion. The changes to gameplay that are made in these frequent updates don’t seem to outweigh what is lost by the headache they’ve cost. Much rather would have not lost days worth of progress, but oh well. Time to play catch up with the other teams. ***Dec 22nd:*** “I was one of the most active and powerful players in my faction, logged on with an update and now I can’t even open the game. Played for weeks, but apparently for no reason because none of it matters now. What a load of garbage. If this changes I guess I’ll edit my review, but I’m still missing out right now on critical siege plans we had. I’ve even tried un-installing the app and re-downloading. Good thing I never paid for anything yet, there will be lots of tempting chances to pay in the game, but DONT GIVE THEM ANY MONEY! Turns out you could just lose the ability to even open the app like me.”
Okay so I like the strategy in the game but when I first started first started playing I was a good guy fraction but they were brutal and toxic when ever I tried to help they say “your to weak get stronger your a spy”. Yeah that’s what they say then in the second season I went to Mordor and they were nicer less toxic but the top warband leaders never listen to my ideas WHEN GONDOR TRAPPED US I SAID “let’s go the Rohin they seam pretty weak and another group already attacking them so let’s help them”. But they said “no we don’t want to start another war”. And I said again “GONDOR HAS US TRAPPED AND THEY CAN DO A FULL OUT INVASION ON US”. And they said “okay still let’s not”. At this point I was facepalming myself. Then I left that group and joined a different one they were smarter but it was not really fun that much because they told me what to do or else I get pretty well kicked from the group and I could not war plan only they could at some times so I just deleted the game it was fun but players are mean and strict in that game and when ever you report someone nothing happens to them. Maybe you should have a staff member or two in each faction and they can check up on each warband to make sure players were being nice to each other and letting them join in and help attack and make it fair to all. And I deleted the game
This is just another example of money grubbing game while the offer you a bad experience playing with rich people that own those games, those type of games only good for you if you ready to spend thousands or even ten of thousands of dollars they are all the same the eastern mobile game companies offer you low Level games with tons of bugs and rich folks that own servers it starts fun and then you realize you are in a dictatorship of some rich YouTuber or some other rich person and you can’t do much if you don’t follow what that person says or the clans that follow that rich overlord, I would advice stop wasting money on Chinese owned games it’s all about money grub for them while giving you the worst game experience, seriously I’ve seen people drop tens of thousands of dollars and quitting eventually realizing there is someone dropped way more and ofc this money grub game favors these dictators low life geeks that just want to feel like they are someone so they spend all they have on building some fake character that not even close to who they are in real life a perfect trap for loser geeks and bored people.
Great game bad execution I started this game mid season and joined a faction with limited players already. We are at the biggest disadvantage possible. No way to actually keep from losing. The enemies have all higher level commanders because they started at the beginning of the season. The developers need to figure out how to keep the game fair for newer players who join mid season maybe when a new player joins start them off where they should be at that point in the season with a couple high level commanders some land surrounding them and some buffs to help them build an army. The tutorial needs to be more focused on how to help a player build themselves up to be able to withstand high level enemies. Also one or two factions can’t have all the power there needs to be more balance between factions. Maybe have a limit on the number of people who can join a faction and if a player becomes inactive let someone join the faction who is new. If inactive players can be kicked that should be done as well. It is worth playing but new players should be aware when you start pick a faction with a larger crowd of people that way you have time to learn the game and don’t have to worry about battling anybody until you are ready.
Ok, so I gave it a good hour from 9-10 last night. Lore, art design, music, all good for LOTR… but what is this game? I picked the ring wraith faction. The game makes it clear that we are all amassing large armies to hunt the one ring, just like the story. Fine. I find myself acquiring really cool orc troops, I have 3 recruited commanders that are cool. It’s a land acquisition game though. It’s like, March here, acquire land for future war, use resources to build up home base… but where is the real combat? Oh, one hour in, I am finally marching in to a square where an actual physical army is… the battle I’ve been waiting for! … not really. You watch these cheesy animations play out in front of you and as far as I can tell, you aren’t doing anything to affect the outcome. It’s all about deploying an army that has balanced forces but man… it was PRETTY boring when it came to me actually feeling like I’m at the helm of a fearsome orc/Uruk-hai army that is trying to dominate the landscape. I like board games, but I play board games with dice and other tangibles that make the experience more enriching and random at times. This game is all about … “nice army… want that square of land? It’s a level 10… go for it.. nice.. you got the land… you want the next piece of land? It’s a level 15 piece of land… too hard… wait 30 minutes
This game is visually stunning. Collecting the different characters from the books and movies is also a lot of fun, especially with their cinematics. The game changes as the season goes on, morphing from a strictly PVE game to a mix of PVE and PVP. Late game requires a lot of coordination and strategy to get the rewards they have set out to motivate massive battles. My complaints: there’s no way to completely defeat someone. You can uproot their city which sends the. Somewhere else, they have the option to come back time and again. Some of the battle mechanics don’t make sense like if you March on a tile but it changes hands while you’re marching you’ll just uturn instead of attacking the enemy army waiting there. There should also be an easier way to time when attacks hit so it is easier to coordinate your commanders. The max size of the barracks is not enough for late game use especially after you have collected a lot of commanders. Love the game and you can play on the cheap and still succeed! I have literally only spent $1 to get Aragorn II and I am currently 11th on my server for total ring power! Very addictive and very fun!
This game is headed in the right direction, in the current state it is I still enjoy it a decent amount as the fighting, expanding, and characters make it interesting enough. However there are a few things that need to be changed to really get this game going. 1) the screen needs to have less buttons. It took me a while to figure out where everything is because there are so many different buttons to press, this needs some streamlining in the sense of certain things being combined based on commonalities, or certain aspects just need to be gotten rid of. 2) the fighting. I want to watch the battle ‘live’, like while it is happening but I can only watch the replay in the inbox so I already know what’s about to happen so it takes away from the suspense and interest. Not only this but the characters that are fighting need to be refined; the animations done make it feel too rigid and unnatural. The fighting is definitely something that will make or break for many players so future updates really need to make it more interesting and really feel like a battle otherwise this game will most likely nose dive. Overall though it is a pretty solid game that I enjoy and recommend for some, but not all.
First, anyone thinking about playing this game needs to understand that it is not a farmville or simcity with dwarves kind of game. It is a PvP war game, where you must cooperate with other players in your fellowship and faction in order to survive. Farmers are not welcome. Fighters are. Second, it is a pay to win game. The game is very well structured in that it is possible to play all the way through without paying any money at all. But the top players spend thousands of dollars on this game, some of them tens of thousands, and it makes a difference. Plan to spend at least a few hundred dollars on this if you want to be competitive. Third, do not spend ANY money until you fully understand how equipment upgrades work. Upgrades are expensive and you do not want to wasre equipment. All of that said, this is truly an extraordinary game, especially if you are a LOTR fan. Especially if you've read ALL five of the books: The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and the LOTR Trilogy. The graphics, gameplay, sound, everything. A work of art. It is deep and complex, like the books. Be patient. Come to learn. Come to fight. Come to win!
Before you download this game, be aware that this game is a p2w that neither values the players time nor the money they spend in a game. Most of the time you will not get anything from the packs you buy with ridiculously low drop rates and even if you do get a certain piece of equipment, odds are that it will not have the exclusive stats that are needed. The people who have the builds with the right stats will steamroll everyone who does not have the exact counter. The devs of this game do not reward gameplay and time so if you do not spend any money, or spend little money, you will just be reduced to fodder and entertainment for the whales. Even if you do spend money, you will not get the items they sell you. It is an outright scam. There is no balance in the game and if you work so hard and put so much time and resources into the game to build a leader with a specific troop composition, there is no guarantee that it will be relevant the next season as the devs keep soft nerfing the viable builds and even implementing unannounced hard nerfs such as they did with the witch king. If you value your time and money you should steer away from this excuse of a game designed to scam as much money out of you as they can. I would rate it zero out of five stars if I could. This game is predatory and should be illegal and taken off the App Store.
Game over all is well set up real Time style type game super amazing game love how it changes every season and new people and things get added each season keeps it fresh keeps the game alive good job on devs. Over all one of the best games I played and there invested in the player. It is a pay to win game and you really need luck to pull something good. I think that needs to be fixed, but time of a pandemic everyone is trying to get money like there is no tomorrow. Only improvement is keep the servers the same the game map is not big enough for mashing servers together, reason I stopped playing as of today is no room for growth then it gets internal fighting to happen because people are constantly betraying for land which bred fighting in the ranks because there was no land, I advise keeping the servers as they are and not merge them. Trust me there is no need to bring in new blood to make it interesting people are free to choose what they want to support which keeps that server active and fun. Plus there was room for everyone to grow! I say fix that and the game will be a top one game for along time.
It is a TEAM gang. If you don’t want to be active everyday, actually listen to your fellowship leaders, you won’t get far. You can play alone but those players never really last long because you are missing about 85% of the game. The servers are neat, the season starts off everyone is nice and having fun and laughing, but as the season progresses the game chat definitely gets interesting. Graphics are epic. Please stop holding mobile games at the critique level of console games, if you want 4k go play on a console or pc. On the money side of things, they have a season pass, it’s affordable, I would suggest it. If you don’t want that, they also have a 30 day token pass. They also have keep your money and still progress. You CAN NOT buy ability points, so everyone is waiting for a 20-30 hour refill just like you. Fellowships have to move as a collective, so it doesn’t matter if Timmy, Wanda, and Cosmo spent their tax money, if the rest of their 97 members didn’t. To The Developers, We appreciate you. I’m only writing a 4 because on my 30 day token pass, I went to collect twice and it said I collected but my tokens never appeared.
The game is only fun if you are a massive player who spend thousands of dollars to play. If you don’t want to spend thousands of dollars, don’t bother. Because not only will you be run over by bigger players, you’ll also have to deal with admins who don’t take complaints about toxic behavior in gamechat seriously. And the whales make all the decisions in the factions and fellowships. There is no cooperation. And so much bullying. My husband tried to see if he could help coordinate an attack at a keep and he’s was told he didn’t matter because he was nobody and to shut up. When he tried to say that he should still be able to play even as a smaller player, he was told to kill himself and that the world would be a better place if he did. Then when he stopped talking in chat, they started bragging that they might have gotten him to actually do it and they were glad. So my husband reported the players, sent in screenshots, and was told that those players telling him to kill himself was “not against community guidelines.” Oh, and also, don’t be surprised if you translate some of the other players languages and they are using a ton of racist, sexist, and homophobic slurs. The game only stops use of those words if you are writing in English but allows it in every other language. Not worth it.
I have really enjoyed playing this game and learning more about LOTR (i haven’t watched all the movies but bare with me.) I enjoy the fact that i can grow pretty fast without spending a single dime but how i grow is still very confusing. They give you a tutorial as you pass stages not as you do them so you really have to guess about whatever or not yours upgrading the right things. I play Kings Choice and in every regular feature of the game they have a (? )you can click on to give you a basic tutorial and guide for what it is you’re on and doing. LOTR War has okay tutorials but i really hope they add something like this to where you can go and read over what everything does and how it affects your growth. Overall it’s a wonderful game and maybe i just don’t pick up fast but i definitely recommend it!
Bad decisions lead to a floundering game experience.
For 2 years I loved this game. It was fun and dynamic. All of the diplomacy that this game engendered made for one of the most in depth games ever created. I had so much fun with it, that I spent freely and had typically one of the top accounts on most servers that I played. I’m addition, there was a definite spot for free to play players as pathers/tilers. Honestly, the tiling is what wins battles. Then 2.0 came along. Gameplay has become very stale. They somehow managed to make battles more confusing and yet more bland. There is no more respeccing on the fly to try to counter an opponent army. You have your big group of 4 characters that create your top army now…and that’s it. No more true counters are to be found. No free to play player can hit a whale with a counter build and win anymore. When attacking, you are either going to hit a pather army or a hitter army. You get no excitement from hitting a pather and hitting a hitter most of the time both armies are going to take some decent losses. It’s also very obvious that they did all of this to try to drive more money into their pockets, but it has made the game feel very stale. Most of my friends have quit, and after this season ends it’s likely that I quit too. It’s a real shame because I had so much fun before this change.
I’ve played since season 1, and after the absolute disaster of s4, I think I’m done. Aside from the troop and primarily commander strength imbalance that leans toward good, the numerical balance of players for the good factions is so bad that out of 40+ servers, evil won 2. Every time new commanders get released, good gets some decent to great commander, and evil gets a mediocre to unplayable one. To this date the initial roster is better than any new ones, and they’ve been nerfed so many times because a specific build by a whale did well. Meanwhile good can stomp with average players and that’s somehow fair. Good gets overbuffed, evil gets overnerfed. Any attempts at helping evil were so half hearted or far too late that it didn’t do anything. One of those measures, the AI assistance, actually helped good players more. The imbalance was already there in s1, and it’s just gotten worse over time. I like the game. It can be fun at times, the LotR theme is really cool and fun, and they clearly know their lore. But it feels like I’m just punished for playing evil, and I’m just finding it hard to justify continuing to spend money and time on a game I’m just not enjoying anymore. I’d like to keep playing, but I’m just tired of not even being allowed to compete because good outnumbers us 5+ to 1.
I myself am a video game dev. I have helped in many projects and have created both large and small titles. And this dev teem committed the capital sin. They got to greedy. I played this game from close to the start, and after hitting a point in my life where work became to busy, I took a break. After about a year, I decided to hop back in. I was mostly a free to play player and spent many hours making friends, enemies, and grinding my commanders (Grima/Lurtz for the win). As soon as I redownloaded and looked at the game, the first thing I noticed was that I had only about 25% of my equipment and my commanders were all way lower of a rank than I previously left them. The devs decided in the 2.0 update that they could monetize/capitalize on players being put to a lower rank so they would have to spend money In order to get back to where they were. Take this as a warning all new players, if they did it once they’ll do it again. I’d stay away from this game, and this is coming from a long long time lord of the rings fan and game developer. Good luck to all those still playing the game, but I think we can all agree that the removal of sub skills ruined this game, as well as the devs practically deleting 50-75% of our progress
I have played a lot of p2w games. Some are good, some are bad and this started off season 1 as the best p2w game I had ever played. Whales are limited in the amount of moves their commander can make, the resources they can acquire and they can not speed up troop training. F2p players could actually have an impact and there was a gear dismantling system in place so that, one day, f2p players could get the gear they wanted, even if the affixes were bad. The devs removed dismantling and now if you don’t spend a ton of money it’s very unlikely you get anything you need for your favorite commander. It is pure lottery and p2w now. The balance in the game has become skewed and there are blatant issues that the devs ignore. Witch King is broken and for the most part the rest of evil is terrible. On the good side, it’s a bunch of Gandalf the Grey/White spam and Theoden spam. Which is fine if thats the meta but it’s been like this for 2+ seasons with no real changes. It has become boring, stale and caters only to the p2w. The game had so much promise at the start because f2p and low spenders could still be relevant and have impact. Now it’s become clear the game is a cash grab and the devs don’t care about the players
Game review from player who played from the start.
This game started off really fun in season 1 and was full of opportunities for a great LOTR fan base culture. Slowly it developed into a p2w game and left the original f2p who were hopeful for a game where everyone had an equal opportunity to be a top player. The World Chat in the game is so full of inappropriate talk, trolling, name calling, and threats that it detracts from the game and creates a toxic environment. When the game first came out I was hopeful for a game deep in lore and activities but it is all repetitive and the lore is not present like it should be. The Christmas event was a kick in the side to its players with a poor reward system. The riddles in the Yule event were absolute trash which was a missed opportunity because it could have been a chance for players to test their knowledge of Tolkien’s lore instead it was all about components to the game. The removal of mechanics which gave f2p an opportunity to slowly grind to start matching p2w so that the developers could force players to pay into the game was a greedy move and created an inequitable environment. All and all after a full season and almost all of season 2 I can say that I left the game permanently due to the aforementioned points.
This is a great game if the devs can keep their hands off of it. They just did a maintenance break. For some reason they think the whole world celebrates Christmas and put a Christmas theme in it. I don’t mind that but it locked my app up and now I can’t get back into the game. I tried deleting it and reinstalling but it is still locked up. All I get is a spinning circle on the load screen. Please fix the bug and stop with these crazy theme updates. Update: I’m very frustrated with this game. It has an excellent basis but the devs are crazy. They actually force everyone to take a week long break between seasons then reset all commanders and castles back to lvl 1. This is insane. You spend money to get your commanders to lvl 50 then they erase your progress returning you to lvl 1. Lol I play King of Avalon, Guns of Glory, State of Survival and The Walking Dead. If the devs reset the heroes/commanders and castles in those games every season they would lose all of their customers!!! As I write this we are in another week long down time that the devs call Bag End….unbelievable. I’ll probably quit the game…even though I love the actual game play…
This game brings me back to playing an original of this series from long ago, Command and Conquer Tiberium Alliances, namely because for so long it was a game of this genre that was fun and not at all pay to win. This game fortunately is not pay to win because it only can help speed things up, when you still only have so many resources to manage, it would be very expensive to use money to get ahead, and you wouldn’t get ahead much, needless to say I usually have enough gems just completing quests etc. the mechanics are fantastic, although idk how I feel about the mixed races in S1 and S2, I think it’s still a creative interesting idea. My only complaint is how overwhelmingly difficult it is to find any server information or sever release information. I want to play this game starting from the first day a S1 server comes out, so I can get into a decent fellowship and not be so behind but it’s hard to find information
This game is fantastic. I have never had a mobile game that sucked me in and kept me playing as much as this one did. Everyone who is saying you need to spend money is simply just an idiot. This game is designed for the free to play players like myself. Here is NO way to speed up conscripting units with real money. NO way to speed up grain and material income with real money. And you are only allowed to buy 1 commander when you first start up the game. You can not buy commanders with real money. You cannot buy land with real money. These people complaining simply had no idea what they were doing and got rekt. Try the game out. You’ll love the attention to detail in Tolkien’s works. Every castle, keep, building, troop, and creature has a clickable tab that gives you information and quotes taken directly from Tolkien’s works. This is a game that the developers put a lot of thought and care into. Give it a try and see for yourself.
At first the game was fun and amazing they then entice you to spend money for little things here and there and now have completely changed the game. Essentially all them money that the players have paid to get specific items was useless, because nothing is the same now. They have pulled the old bait and switch, having people spend for one thing and now completely changed everything that you spent money on. Then they ask the community for feedback to try and save face and COMPLETELY IGNORE the feed back they get. It’s become very clear the DEVS of the game care nothing about what the community and players think and are going to do whatever they want anyways. If you decide to give the game a try you will have very few players to play with as a large mass of players are quitting and deleting the game biased off of the complete lack of understanding and caring from the devs. I know of at least 300 people who have quit already and the number is only going to rise. Unfortunately when / of the devs ever actually decide to listen to the players and community it will be to late because most of not all will or have quit and won’t come back.
I’ve been playing this game since October of 2021 and it was amazing. Fun game mechanics and social aspect to make friends and have fair fights with enemy factions. However as I’ve watched this game evolve it has turned into a f2p players worst nightmare. The game is heavily influenced on pay to win. Other players will spend $100s-$1000s getting the best gear and best commanders possible to where it is impossible for even intermediate spenders to keep up with. The developers have also increased the difficulty for taking tiles making it even harder to keep up with everyone else unless you have spent a decent amount. It would be cool if they could have free to play servers and spending servers like RuneScape or something to balance out the players that go hard on spending. Even if a ranking system was added to make the battles more fair, that would be cool too. In its current state the game is completely unbalanced and the fights aren’t fun anymore unless you’re decked out in the best gear money can buy. It saddens me that most likely I’m going to quit playing due to this.
I’m still learning the new play style now. Everything is so much different than when I left in 2023. The biggest issue though I’ve found is how you can just be completely steam rolled by players who spent 100’s if not 1000’s of $ on the game. And even in a decent fellowship/warband it’s so easy to be landlocked and starved. The pay to wins beat you down and you can’t recover cause you have no resource tiles left. You can’t escape because you are landlocked by the pay to wins. So at the end of the day you spend 50% of the season being annihilated at every corner you turn around. I’m sick of it honestly and I’m considering quitting the game. I have a lot of friends I was going to get into the game with me and play it together. But since nothing is done to truly balance the equation, or make it playable, I think we’ll stick to COD mobile/ or Xbox. It hurts writing all this because I’ve loved the game since day one. I am extremely disappointed in the direction the game has gone. Want my thoughts DEVS? MAKE IT A RANKED SYSTEM!!! Or at least give the choice of a ranked system. So those of us who don’t have a large disposable income can actually enjoy the game.
This game is a huge waste of time. Sure it was cool in the beginning(I preordered it before it came out) but several servers later(maybe 7) I have to say you can not win unless you are willing to pay a lot of money. There is a little strategy involved but once you are out of stamina the pay to win-whales move in and wipe you out completely. I am a die-hard LOTR fan but I am done with this game. The world chat is toxic and racist and the developers never respond to reports or remove offensive chats and names. I have even seen some glitches that have still not been resolved where players can move across river into another territory with out needing a friendly tile on the other side. Player make fake accounts to fill up other factions and keep their enemies small in number. Again developers do not remove inactive players. I had high expectations for this game and was fun in the beginning but there is no new content for each new season it just repeats season 1 all over again. I want to like this game, I really do, but no matter how much time or effort you put into this game you will never be able to compete with pay to win players.
I urge everyone to stop playing this game, it is badly broken. They pit players on season 3 against players playing their 6th season! That is BAD! I have spent hundreds on this game just to reach season 3 and fight against people who have played twice the seasons I have. That means my enemies have had twice the time to spend money on their account to whale themselves out. A child could make a better game, that is a huge flaw and an embarrassment. Do not play this, in fact it needs to be removed from the store. What they are doing to their players is just sickening.. you guys do not deserve a single star for doing me the way you have done, as well as half of my warband. Many s3 players underpowered by the s6 players, a child wouldn’t even make such a programming error. I would need too spend the same amount of money the s6 players have spent, but in half! The! Time! I am done getting slapped just because you develop trash. I’m done getting slapped just because you developers are incompetent. I am done playing this garbage, and I STRONGLY urge all other players to do the same. End this tragedy now
Those who are interested in the LOTR lore will definitely enjoy this game, but that’s where the enjoyment stops. This game consists of seasoned players who have months or years into the game ganging up on new players. For example, I started my first game ever and get matched up with seasoned players that literally take over the entire server by asking their friends to play with them but on other factions so that they can easily betray and attack their allies when advantageous. It’s ridiculous that good factions can ally with bad factions in season 1 to enable this behavior. It’s almost as if the devs are encouraging this type of action. Furthermore, the world chat is littered with sexual innuendo, misogyny, and references to drug use alienating younger or female newcomers. PVP boils down to who can “bump” players more effectively instead of actually engaging in battles which leads to wasted stamina turning the game into a snarl instead of an active, fun, engaging experience. Definitely a pay to win arrangement
Loved the strategy, updated this review. It became pay to win after just 2 seasons because the developers seem to care more about money than balance. If you don’t dump tons of money you will never win a fight because all you’re doing is pulling for equipment for your commanders. Makes the game unplayable for any casual or individual who doesn’t have spending money lying around. I was also baited by false advertising through an Instagram ad so that was sketchy originally in season 1 (the ad made it look like it was a dungeon crawler, not a world wide war). I’ve played for over a year and the spending gap is the only factor that matters and even then there are commanders (ON GOOD SIDE ONLY) with EVERY POSSIBLE skill available to them from madness to damage reduction to evasion to stun to defense buffs, healing, and defense reduction. Evil side has some access to these skills to a degree but it’s not as explicit as it is on some commanders like Gil Galad, Gandalf the Grey, and Isildur.
Good: When I first played this game a few years ago. I had a blast playing the first season. It was very confusing, but once I got the hang of it, it was a lot of fun. Conquering the map of middle earth with your favorite characters from Lord of the Rings while making fun conversations on world chat, it was great! Bad: That is, until you realize that the further you go on, the greater the gap becomes between those who pour insane amounts of money into the game, and those who just want to have fun. Second season is a waste of time if you are free to play. I’ve played the game for months and only gotten 1 Gold commander. And my main commander never got past Tier 7. Worse: They just released Version 2 of the game. And oh man is it bad. Super laggy. The items don’t make any sense. It makes it infinitely harder for players to scale their commander and organize their units. It’s just a mess. I think I’m not alone in thinking this might be the end of the game. And good riddance if so. That’s where greed gets you.
The game is fun at first, there’s this immersion with the world that is very nostalgic. Building up is fun and grouping together with others can be a delight. However, the game serves (I have been on five now) quickly become over run with people making multiple accounts. Due to there being low populations in every server to get members and power in the factions people cheat. There is no set rule for making multiple accounts and the games teams do nothing about it. Eventually by last 5 chapters of season 1 the entire server is usually a few players with one account vs a single faction with 2-5 alt accounts. Add in the fact that people are just down right nasty in these games, most of the time are the cheaters. Overall the games fun to try but not worth to keep playing. Every server becomes a toxic wasteland of alt accounts. Even with a new season and “sever merger” it’s all the same. Until the devs and team actually do something about it’s toxic players and the rampant cheating it’s not worth the data or space on your phone.
I played this game since it first came out 2 years ago and had no idea what I was getting into. I love the LoTR franchise and have for awhile so a game that encompassed my favorite characters and themes really spoke to me. I got very invested in this game and did spend a decent amount of money, but started to truly understand the mechanics and strategy to be a force without breaking the bank. The update that they put out completely changed that. It took away all the progress I had made and turned the game into something almost unplayable. Not only that, but the update hit in the midst of a season and the player count drastically fell. I miss the original version and the grind that came with it but all that progress was for nothing with this update. If you are new to the game, it may not be worth getting invested since it will cost you more now then it did at the beginning to even be relevant in your season. Sad to see such a fun game changed into something almost unrecognizable and I probably will never play again.
I have put hundreds of hours into this game over that last 4 months. It has been fun but the developers have made this game 100% pay to win. Everything is based around unlocking and rank up commanders. U get one free chest a day with a super small chance to unlock a commander or a gift that when combined with a total of 30 super rare gifts can unlock a commander. Once it’s unlocked you then have to rank them up to be competitive. And if that’s not enough there is equipment that has random stats and rarities that you also have to get lucky to get out of chests. Before the developers got greedy you could dismantle equipment and trade for something you wanted but they removed that function so they could make more money. I enjoyed the first season where everyone was almost on a leveled playing field. Season 2 is a joke, those who spend the most money win. Not to mention the racism and offense chat that is not moderated. I do not recommend anyone plays this game in its current state.
I’ve played this game for 2 years and I enjoyed the game it *used* to be. The community aspect of the game is what truly kept me coming back. The battles were fun and accessible, but now the newest “update” they’ve given (2.0) has turned this into a completely different game. One of the biggest criticisms I have is that this development team needs to hire an entire PR department to do any communication of any sort in the future. The past 2 years has been a series of updates and small changes with limited information that happens to be hidden in unintended riddles and miscommunications. The communication to the player base is absolutely horrendous - and now we get this flop of an update that changes the entire game… and surprise - we get more cryptic explanations of what is going on. It’s frustrating. I won’t even get into how they’ve essentially stolen the money that players invested over the years with this new update. It’s unfortunately become untenable for me to continue to support this game.
I’ve been playing this game since it started, 2 years ago. I have 2 years worth of investment, which like many others, totals in the thousands of dollars. The new 2.0 version is essentially just Netease stealing from their customers. I strongly urge anyone considering this game to keep moving and find a game with more reputable devs. My two years of carefully cultivating my equipment through very expensive, low percentage drops is all gone now. They took all of the equipment in the game and added a gate keeping effect to it that will now require a massive cash investment from the players to simply get back to where they were. It’s exhausting and blatantly predatory. The 2.0 version of the game does not improve any aspects of the game, but they certainly make them much more expensive. Starting this game as a new player would be nuts. Short of immediately investing about $2k after downloading it, a new player will never be competitive in this game, and it’s hemmoraging older players now.
It seems that the evil factions have quite a disadvantage in some aspects of the game. The commanders you can unlock generally won’t be nearly be as good as the commanders available to the good side factions. There are also absolutely zero 200+ power tiles besides the mountainous lair in the Mordor starting area which automatically gives the other factions an advantage. Overall I think the evil side factions need to be seriously buffed and/or reworked for the game to be balanced. Another thing: Getting commanders is extremely difficult and it makes the game pay to win. Even if you do manage to get a good commander by some miracle, you need to get EVEN MORE of their items to unlock more of their abilities, it’s absolutely insane how much money you need to spend to unlock a good commander and also unlock their entire ability tree.
The game is a load of fun at the end of a season, but the balance in factions is to great for the orc side to win if the other players want to make a light and evil. I believe their should be no side I believe anyone should be able to team with one another evil or not because their should be no sides only war. I also believe their should be a cap on how many can join one faction because time and time again you just see the loth wining because everyone and their mom joins them making the game less of a good experience for any other factions because of it then it just comes down to them bullying the factions the want to be evil witch in cannon is correct but it shouldn’t be that way in the game you all want power it’s not destroy the ring it’s take it and use it for your own so their shouldn’t be a good and evil
The absolute fun of this game for the past 3 plus years has all been wiped away in the matter of 1 un-necessary update hat has ruined literally everything about the game. If you were going to make changes …then you should stop having these Hot Events getting users to spend there gems or cash and getting absolutely fleeced time and time again as no one gets anything but the same tired pieces over and over….furthermore anyone who pays for a gold mathom token thinking they will get anything would be better off playing Russian roulette with a howitzer in there mouth thinking they will win a single thing. Talk about mass exodus of a game….violins are playing, ice berg demolished the ship and there’s no going back.
I’m going to try and keep it real here. And as short as possible so I won’t go into specifics but trust me there are many. The first 2 years of this game have been pretty amazing. Graphics, gameplay, general customization/skill building, team building mechanics and general support more often than not has also been pretty good. Not all game modes (campaigns) were great. We would have liked to see a bit more variety. And feedback was often slow to be implemented. But we did see meaningful improvements over these 2 years and the net net is more good than harm. HOWEVER; they just announced they’re basically deleting the original game and replacing it with something entirely different. Somewhere between 50% and 80% of the things that I spent money for on this game will now be changed. I’ll let all the readers decide for themselves what the implications of that are. I feel sad and betrayed. I’ll keep playing to see what happens but probably done spending. Caveat Emptor, I suppose.
This game is really fun and interesting. Unlike some games there is a story. On top of that,there’s a scene from the actual book! I have not been in this game for long and it is already very entertaining. Unfortunately,there are some problems. Soldiers and commanders are very slow and you cannot do anything to make them faster. But I thank you for adding a boost to getting back. Also when I joined a warband,the leader approved my request but I was unable to reply after he said we could speak and I felt bad about it like I just left him hanging. That was upsetting and I wish I could have been able to reply. Like all games this one has problems,but ever since I installed it in my opinion it was a big success. I hope this game becomes more successful in the future. Best of luck!
As a LOTR fan I got this game on release and have over 2k ring power/hr. I have not and do not plan to spend cash in game, I LOVE the characters and finally being able to play and see the story from The forces of Sauron side, but that’s pretty much where the positives end for me. Resources are terribly scarce and hard to replenish and WAY too many troops die in battle, you need these resources to heal your troops and recruit more, thus making it near impossible to build a massive army and keep them alive without exhausting resources, it’s hard to get upgrades and equipment through the tavern missions as you can only do so many without having to spend gems. This game is cashing in on the LOTR name and people’s nostalgia. Can be fun if you want to spend the cash though.
I'm so thrilled this game is out! I've played various Middle-Earth based games out there and this one is just more together and fun to play than most. The only thing I would ask for is that there was some sort of mini-game (or games) in it where you could gain very small amounts of XP for commanders (or some other resource) but be able to play it as much as you wanted. It would make for a fun way to kill time in the app while you're waiting for buildings to be constructed or troops to be conscripted, etc. Overall, though I'm very please with this game and will be looking forward to gaining more commanders and troop types. Hopefully there will be updates from time to time with even more commanders from the books and movies.
I preregistered for this game and absolutely loved it at the beginning. But have enjoyed it less and less as it goes on. The game is played in “seasons” which is good because of you loose one season you can still make friends and try again in the next season. However seasons are all but decided on day 1. The factions that start strong attract more players and then run away with it. The gap between the strongest faction on a server and the second strongest is usually huge. They need to make some kind of cap to keep factions closers in size to keep it competitive and fun. It’s all about teamwork and I love that aspect of this game. Having to work together to take big objectives and wage a war on multiple fronts is awesome. Again though a big BUT you’re not really incentivized to keep playing once it’s obvious who is going to win if your not on the strongest faction before Team switching closes. All you can do is annoy the winning faction and maybe slow them down but winning from behind is next to impossible with the current set up. Graphics are great user interface is good the devs seem to listen to the community and make good changes… Over all I really like the game which is why it’s more disappointing that I doubt I’ll keep playing after season 2 ends.
Big time changes are happening to this game and it will completely change gameplay. But my gripe here is about the people who’ve spent a small fortune,10k plus USD, that will lose all everything they’ve spent money on. Personally Ive only spent a couple hundred. But I will quit the game in solidarity with my friends across the world who will be wronged. This game is a haven for a lot of people and a way for people of many cultures to connect with one another and leave our real work differences aside. Something I believe Tolkien would’ve been in awe to have seen the effect his world has made so many decades later. Dear developers if you read this, please consider the people and fans of this fantasy world, and not just your pockets.
The people running this game are only interested in money. They have changed the game entirely from its original format and made it almost entirely unplayable. The newest idea to only be able to leveled up heros beyond 40 by attacking other players will be the death of it. My teammates are quitting in droves bc of this and all the other changes that were not fully thought through before being implemented. So no only the strongest players can level up bc they kill everyone and get all the experience while the normal players are all stuck being unable to level up without ridiculous loses and giving the other player even more experience to beat them even worse next time… it’s exponentially weeding out all the normal players and only a handful of whales are enjoying it for now, but once there is no one left playing bc it’s now impossible to compete , they will get bored and leave too.
Everyone knows you need money to improve the game but even a blind person could see how greedy you’ve become in the beginning it was bad itself but you continue to push the same generic way to play like every other mobile game devs do and that’s not a good thing if you think it might be, nevertheless I doubt you care as long you see the numbers go up but giving way to a more authentic and progressive way to play will bring it more committed people rather than those who blow money when your becoming like every other mobile strategy game, you should only push cosmetic type items and things that don’t improve your power or give you great generals and armies with money but instead of like the appearance and looks but I already know this won’t be taken into consideration nevertheless even read but this mine and majority of the peoples opinion even those who do spend money but doesn’t dump it into your pockets
Flowering of the Mallorn Tree The Spring Festival has returned! Grow the Mallorn tree by completing puzzles and mini-games while also learning about the Mallorn Tree and Sam. Epic tales of old, be it of love, friendship, or glory, are in days bygone. A new War of the Ring is on the horizon, and the fate of Middle-earth now falls into your hands. An irrepressible dark power has been growing, seeping, and bring the war to every inch of Middle-earth. From Minas Tirith to Mount Doom, each faction is desperate to seize control over the One Ring and take dominion over Middle-earth once and for all. One Ring to Rule Them All. The War of the Ring has reignited! - Live Your War of the Ring The One Ring has resurfaced in the deserted castle of Dol Guldur. It bestows unrivaled power to dominate Middle-earth on its bearer, luring peoples from all factions into a great war. - Build A Fortified Settlement Your settlement infrastructure dictates the efficacy of your strategies. Each building functions uniquely, and your power grows with the development of your settlement. Get well prepared for incoming warfares. - Assemble Formidable Armies From spearmen, archers, and knights to marvellous creatures and dreadful beasts—all forces must be mustered before the warfare is waged. Victory will be yours if your strategy is sound and your forces are mighty. - Form Your Fellowship As a Steward of Middle-earth, you must step into a vast world and take control by developing your settlement, expanding your territory and founding your own Fellowship. Grand challenges await. - Expand Factional Territories Throughout the season, your power enhances by building expeditionary forces, expanding land tiles, collecting valuable resources, and repelling the enemies. The experience and strength you gained during your conquest from war would help you get through any unexpected obstacles. - Explore Middle-earth’s Wonders From the lofty majesty of Minas Tirith to the brutish terror of Barad-dûr, experience a re-creation of Middle-earth that places you on the ground in the expansive world created by J.R.R. Tolkien. Facebook Fan-page: https://www.facebook.com/gaming/lotrrisetowar Discord Community: https://discord.com/invite/lotrrisetowar YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkV855DPObfN8wtGedYJ33Q/videos
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