The Lord of the Rings: War

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.

I really like the strategy aspect of the game and think the game stands out versus some of the other genres. Problem is you get stuck on evil side because everyone else is on the good side, thus making it impossible to level up like everyone else because your constantly getting attacked and them taking your lands. For example my land has 20 to 25 players active versus 200+ players moving in our lands. Hard to battle someone when you literally out manned 10 to 1. Overall great 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!

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!

***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.”

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.

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!

Amazing game! It's a new long-time favorite. The battles could be more interactive and the graphics could be crisped up but that could be a performance thing. There's a bit of a faction issue with players switching when their team is losing leaving some factions with too few players to fully experience the game as the season progresses. Also, the War of the ring game mode may be geographically unbalanced (Mordor restricted by mountains on all sides and elves starting next to the One Ring etc.)

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

The game is good, I love the lore and the characters. But the issue is balancing, from my experience its a certain point in the season where one side overpowered and crumbles the other factions. I would have appreciated it more if there were more balance patches and more missions to play as when there is nothing to do.

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.

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.