Basics: Relics

Every commander comes with a unique piece of gear, which you can unlock after he reached a certain respect level.

This unique piece was formerly known as "Unique", but now is named a "Relic".

To acquire one of these is not very easy as you cannot get them through luck and just randomly pull them from chests, but you have to spend a considerable amount of time playing the game and usually also spending money. If you are F2P player, it will take you a long time to be able to unlock one of these gear pieces.

The special part of these pieces is - and that is why they are unique - that you can use them only on that one specific commander. It is not possible to apply them on any other commander.

This makes them extremely valuable. Aside from their value, they are also very expensive, which makes them rather low ROI compared to other gear pieces.

On the right side you can find the "Relic" menu option.

Think First

Due to their costs, the most important thing to do before you touch any Relics is to make absolutely sure you are 100% certain that you want to use THIS commander and that you want to really use this Relic. You will see further below that there is no turn-around once you have the relic and only an extremely expensive turn-around after you strengthen them.
I say it upfront: My advice is to NEVER reforge a relic as it makes you lose account value.

Now, if you can afford it, get the basic Relic for your commanders. The basic Relic as such is affordable and gives you a little extra buffs, which can come in handy. If you have several options on Relics to acquire, but can only afford one or maybe two, make sure to look at the buffs and consider what might be the best option for your personal army composition that you're using.

Advice No. 2: Do NOT enhance Relics unless very specific landmarks are reached. I strongly recommend to prioritize your regular gear sets first. Optimize these before you touch the enhance button before you are maxed out on your gear. Enhancing a Relic works way different from strengthening a gear piece. You will see that below.

I also strongly recommend to ask for advice before you spend anything at all on a Relic. Ask your friends or fellowship/warband mates what they would do. Which Relic they would pick. There are always knowledgeable people in all teams who can give good advice and provide for different perspectives.

Acquiring the Relic

To acquire a Relic you need Pure Mithril, depending on which tier your commander originally was: 

• 40 Pure Mithril for Epic commanders (purple, previously Mighty/blue) - t1 tier
  e.g. Grima, Gorbag, Khaldoon, Hirgon, Haldir, Dwalin, ...
• 50 Pure Mithril for Legendary (gold, previously Epic/purple) - t2 tier
  e.g. Celeborn, Balin, Imrahil, Gothmog, Shadow, Lurtz, ...
• 60 Pure Mithril for Mythic (orange, previously Legendary/gold) - t3 tier
  e.g. Gil, Thranduil, Dain, Sauron, The Undying, Saruman, ...

If your commander was t1 or t2 originally, your commander also needs to be ascended to Mythic tier to unlock the Relic:

• Reach respect 10
• Ascend for 150x respect item of commander + 40x respect item of a chosen t3/Mythic commander
• You have to performed all three of the tasks to unlock the Relic

Aside from reaching the respect level and - if needed - ascension, these requirements are not too difficult and doable. Some might take a few seasons and the combined efforts of your team, but eventually it is pretty much doable in most cases.

Enhancing Relic

Costs:

• Level 1: 2 random pieces of gold gear
• Level 1: 3 random pieces of gold gear
• Level 1: 4 random pieces of gold gear
• Level 1: 6 random pieces of gold gear
• Level 1: 10 random pieces of gold gear

This amounts to a total of 25 pieces. You can choose whichever gear piece that you do not need. It does not matter which gear slot they are. However, you cannot use Worn-out pieces, like you would be able to on regular gold gear. We will come to this later and why this is an important factor.

Gain:

Now, as I mentioned above, enhancing a Relic works very different from strengthening your gear piece. You don't increase every stat little by little every level until it is (Basic value)x3 at max level. Instead you add to ONE of the buffs randomly, but in the full amount of its basic value:
e.g. if the random stat's base value is +6, you receive +6 on top for one Enhancement

This means that theoretically you might end up with 5x buffed [Commander] HP. For me personally, the random factor was very random, but mostly spread out evenly(-ish) across the options.

See example here with my GtW Relic
I enhanced it 5 times and got
1x [Commander] Command
2x [Commander] Focus
- x [Unit] Attack
2x [Unit] Defense

As you can see the enhancement applies to any of the stats, except the unique's special effect.

The special effect, which is a very unique effect to each Relic, can be leveled up by refining your Relic. 

Refining Relics

The way how you refine your Relic works still the same as it always did and it still does the same as it used to do in the classic version of the game.

You use Pure Mithril to upgrade the special effect of your Relic.

Costs:

• Mighty / Legendary / Mythic
• Level 1: 40 / 50 / 60
• Level 2: 40 / 50 / 60
• Level 3: 80 / 100 / 120
• Level 4: 80 / 100 / 120 *
• Level 5: 120 / 150 / 180 *

*Disclaimer: I have not seen any actual costs beyond Level 3, but it follows the same pattern as it used to and as we know it from refining other gear

So the total Pure Mithril costs to obtain and max refine a Relic would be: 

• T1 commander: 400 Pure Mithril  
• T2 commander: 500 Pure Mithril
• T3 commander: 600 Pure Mithril

Obtaining Pure Mithril

Since it requires a lot of Mithril to obtain and refine your Relics, here a little overview on how to obtain the Pure Mithril that you need. 

• Tavern: You can obtain Mithril Ore from Tips in the Tavern
  These Mithril Ores can be forged into Pure Mithril in the Mathom House with the function Mithril Combining at a ratio of 10:1
• Gem Store in the Mathom House: You can buy 7x Pure Mithril at 1000 gems/piece every week
• Season Store: For the short time the season store is open you can exchange 200 Season Medals for 1 Pure Mithril. Currently there are two of these offers listed in the shop
• Event Chests: There were some event chests with progression rewards - could be a possibility they bring every once in a while again, but has not been seen for a bit

This means, in total you could get roughly about 60 per season (give or take). In one year that makes roughly 360 Pure Mithril.

Reforge Relics

To say it directly upfront and very clearly: reforging your Relic will reduce the value of your account. 

My advice: DON'T EVER DO IT!

Several people have fallen into the trap and did it without realizing what exactly is happening. They thought it is like using an Elven Hammer to get all used items back to use them in other places. However, it is not.

To start with, the option to reforge your Relic is only accessible once the Relic has been maxed in Enhancements. Meaning: you have put in 25 random gold gear pieces into the Relic. As soon as you have done that the button "Enhance" changes to "Reforge".

If you click on that button, you get to this screen:

You better look closely - and remember: it is a maxed out item which has 25 gold pieces used as material. Look at my item:

As you can also see written there, you get 13 worn equipment pieces back, which will match the gear slots of the first 13 items listed. The order of the listed items is the order of their usage. First ones in get listed first. However, fully viable gold gear gets turned into worn equipment if you reforge your Relic.

So, here again an overview of the reforging process

• Costs: 3000 gems
• Gain: Relic in refinement state as is + 13 worn pieces of the type you used for 13 of the originally 25 full gold gear pieces

What does this mean?

You lose 12 full gold pieces completely and 13 pieces get turned into worn pieces. It also leaves you 3k gems short for being able to do that. 

So you are paying for losing value on your account.

Thus: Whatever you do, do NOT ever break up a Relic!

❌

FAQ

1. Should I get a Relic for my commander?

• If you can afford it/have collected the Pure Mithril and you are certain that you want to use this commander long term, definitely get at least the basic piece. 

2. Should I enhance my Relic?

• Are you sure you want to play this commander long term?
• Before you think of enhancing a Relic you should have all your commander's gear max strengthened
• Prioritize Refining your gear over enhancing a Relic
• Only do so if you generally spend a considerable amount of money on the game
• For F2P or low spenders you get way more out of your buck if you use the limited gold pieces you have on your commanders' 4 gear slots instead
• Consider the factor of randomness when you enhance your Relic
• Calculate what you will get from it - compare with what you would get for using these items on regular gold gear instead
• Enhancing a Relic to level 1/2/3/4/5 amounts in a total of 2/5/9/15/25 gold pieces
  Strengthening a regular gold piece to level 1/2/3/4/5 amounts in a total of 1/2/6/11/19 gold pieces
  => for one completely enhanced Relic you could instead end up with 2x level 4 and 1x level 2 gold pieces or 4x level 3 plus leftover (not considering type of gold piece)
• If you have more than one basic Relic, consider which one might give you the best stats - not all Relics are equally good

3. Should I refine my Relic?

• Before Refining a Relic, consider if it might be more valuable to acquire another Relic instead
• Refining a Relic will upgrade the stats of your Relic's "special effect"
• Make sure that the special effect will benefit your army composition

4. I made a mistake enhanced a Relic, which now I do not use anymore. Should I reforge?

• My personal advice in short: No. 
• You might change your mind again at a later time and then you have wasted all this gold gear and would have to redo it all over again. 
• Reforging costs and reduces the value of your account.

Moral: Make sure you know what you're getting yourself into and that you REALLY think enhancing a Relic is the best way to advance your account

2.0 Gear Tool - Update

The game's 2.0 version has not been out for all that long, but it underwent already a lot of changes during this time. 

To reflect these changes I updated and optimized the Gear Tool for you. 

Find the link to the Gear Tool at the end of this article.

What changes have been made?

1. The most significant changes by the devs on gear was the change of the race restrictions. A lot of gear was very restrictive in use and some races were really at a major disadvantage as to how many different gear pieces they were even able to use in the first place.

This has been changed and almost all gear pieces are now available for all races - with just a few exceptions for Elves, Orcs, Uruk-hais and large races (Beorning, Ents, Trolls). 

The result is that every commander has at least 119 pieces to choose from, with 127 pieces available in the game overall (or maybe 128 - one hears about a legendary piece that is extremely rare and almost never to see; if you find it, ss and show me the stats and all information - you shall get rewarded for it).

2. I provided for two tabs now instead of one tab where you can filter your gear. Again, please reset the filters when you are done so that the next person can fully use it as intended. However, those two tabs will now provide the option to work on it parallel without disturbing each other when there is more than one person trying to work on their gear.

3. I was lucky and pulled a very rare piece, the Estëcára. Of course I added the stats for this piece to the Gear Tool, so that those who are lucky enough to have one also can take this piece into account.

4. Relic tab - I changed the stats all to Main Stats since there is not a separate "Head Stat" affected by refining gear as with the regular pieces. Relics are different from other gear pieces in that every strengthening will pick one random Main Stat to be upgraded and the Refining will upgrade the Special Effect. To reflect this in the table I changed its optics.

5. A new Commander (Bard) has been released not too long ago. I added the new data for his relic accordingly.

That was it already. I hope you enjoy the newly updated Gear Tool and may it help you make the best choices for your commanders.

2.0 GEAR TOOL (v. 1.1)

New 2.0: Gear Tool - Your Way to Finding the Gear You Need

The new 2.0 update has been out for almost a week now. You have been struggling to find the right gear? Don't worry anymore. In my Gear tool which has a complete list of all available pieces you find all gear, its stats, all possible special effects and also a complete list of all the relic items.

Read on to find out how to use the Gear Tool and find the link at the end of this article.

Introducing the Tool

When you open the tool you will find 4 Tabs:

• Filter your Gear - This is open to edit, which allows you to filter for different stats (see explanation below)
• Gear - all the gear, but protected. Here you can safely look around and double check the data in case the first tab gets botched.
• Effects - a list of all the effects available on the regular gear
• Relics - a complete list of all the relics with their stats and special effects as stated in game

Which Data is in the Tool?

The list contains all the information about the gear that you need:

• Rarity colour coded - Legendary, Exquisite, Fine, Superior - every gear piece is on the list. There may be one or two extremely rare ones missing that you can only get through tips for example.
• Type colour coded - Hand, Head, Armor, Accessory
• 
  Head stat - The stat that is indicated in the Top part of the gear card, directly under the title (1). This is the stat you influence by refining your piece. The refinement status of your gear is indicated by the border. You can now refine your gear independently of the strengthening level (star level). Possible stats are [Commander] HP, [Commander] Damage and [Commander] Command.
• Main stats - These stats make the body part of the gear card (2) and can be influenced by the Strengthening status or "Star" Level of your gear. Possible stats are [Commander] Attack, Focus, Damage or Initiative and for [Units] Attack, Defense and Siege.
• Special Effect - These are the set effects (3) that have to be the same for all slots on your commander in order to activate. The stats are fixed stats, which means you cannot influence them by strengthening or refining your piece. There are 14 different effects available on every piece (except the anniversary set, which comes only with "Siege Ladder"). Furthermore there are some racial stats, which can be found on select pieces - you can see that in column O "Has racial special effect" where you will find indicated which racial effects are available for the specific piece.
• Race restrictions - if the gear has any race restrictions indicated (the case for most pieces), you will find here which races can use the piece.

How to Use the Filter

In the first tab of the tool, "Filter your Gear", you have the option to filter by the different columns. The line with the filters is marked green. Here you can click on the arrow-like lines and then pick what you want. In most cases you would simply pick for which stat you are searching and then untick the option "blank" to show all gear options that carry the stat you are looking for.

Let's say you are looking for pieces that carry the stat [Commander] Command as you want to have more troops in your formation.

• Click on the filter in column F 
• Unclick "Blank"
• Click on "OK" 

Now you see only all the pieces that carry this specific stat.

You could now filter on further stats to limit the choice even more.

If you look at the green row, you can see which columns bear a filter. To remove a filter simply click on the filter icon and then click on "Select all" and on "OK". 

This was it. I hope you have fun using the filter and wish you success finding the best gear for your commanders.

Policy & Link

As this tool is public for everyone to access without limits and the Filter tab is open for edit, I would like to set a few rules on how to use it.

1. Do not make any other changes on this tab aside from using the filter option.
2. If you accidentally make a mistake or if you notice that someone else might have made a mistake, please reach out to me and let me know so I can fix it again for everyone to use it. I will check in every now and then, but I might not catch it before you or someone else needs it. You can contact me via this Blog or on Discord @ladydeath1. 
3. After you used the filter option, please be so kind and reset the filters for the next user.

If you have any questions, let me know and I see how I can help you.

Should you have any gear pieces that are missing from this list, I would appreciate if you could send me screenshots of the basic gear stats and the bottom of the available special effects list.

And now, enjoy the Gear Tool.

New Discord Community Server

I am very happy to announce my new discord community server and would like to extend an invitation to you all.

Fill it with life, share it with your friends, enjoy your stay. The community's aim is to feed fans of the mobile game "Lord of the Rings - Rise to War" with information, support them with discussions and provide some extra fun on the side.

Let's make it a pulsating and thriving community, full of life and joy!

Join today and be among the first ones to make yourselves at home and grab the best spots on the sofa: 

https://discord.gg/W4d3Xu4h

Opinion - [The New Age] PBE: Changes

In my article Basics - [The New Age] PBE: Changes I introduced the changes to game mechanics as introduced in PBE [The New Age]. To get a full picture on what I'm talking about in below article, I strongly recommend to read that article first. This holds true especially for readers who do not have access to the PBE test server where these changes are introduced by the game team and tested by a limited amount of players.

Recap

To reiterate in short, the changes introduced in PBE [The New Age] are: 

• complete gear rework, 
• major commander skill tree changes, 
• new battle mechanics 
• Energy pool instead of Stamina/AP

as main changes and the introduction of 

• multiple conscription queues for same troop type, 
• exp leveling past 40 only via PvP, 
• unique item as separate slot 

as the smaller ones. 

Many Discussions

Now, the past three or four days the discussions went wild. From first spontaneous statements like "I'm quitting" about 2 hours after PBE got launched (even by players who don't have access to the test environment) to some more in depth discussions - you can find pretty much everything. The main argument that I see is that these changes are messing too much with the individual investment into the game and that people are afraid of losing value on their game safe.

While I can see how some "value" in terms of time and effort spent on optimizing the account for the current Meta might be rendered as "useless" or "wasted", I cannot agree with the notion that the actual monetary value spent gets reduced by these changes (barring the lost skill points from Impart Wisdom, which I mentioned in the article).

Requested Changes

Many players are unhappy with the idea of the current special effects being scratched completely. However, for many months numerous players, including those now unhappy ones, have been remarking on some of these effects being "broken" or "OP" and the necessity to nerf them. Personally, I don't see the huge issue with losing the special effects we have known for that long - aside from the fact that we are simply used to them and know what they do without having to scratch our head anymore to find a good solution for a fight we can win.

Realistically, this change affects literally every single player, which makes it for once a decently fair adjustment in my opinion. In contrast to that, every prior change to gear items or commander skills has been "unfair" as it always only hit a few people who had focused on this commander or gear piece and then suddenly couldn't use it feasibly anymore (e.g. Haldir's unique as many might remember).

If Frenzy would be taken out for example, we'd have a lot of unhappy Khaldoon players (and others of course). We would have people at a major disadvantage who worked for this for months maybe and hunted down every single Gigantic Hammer they could lay their hands on. Meanwhile the rest of the community could laugh and rub their hands because they haven't been affected. I can think of no way of "nerfing" that item which would have resulted in the owners of the item being happy in the end. Whether it be a direct or indirect nerf. And this holds true for so many items in the game.

By changing the whole setup of items, the problem gets ripped out at the root: special effects that are only available for some items and not for others, especially the gold gear ones. One might get the idea that the uproar against these changes could also stem in the fear of not being at a big enough advantage over others anymore. With every effect available to every gear item and thus to every player at every spending level, the special effects of gold gear are not something that only one spending type has available anymore. 

However, while this change to the special effects evens out the chances for good special effects throughout every layer of player type, gold gear still brings enough advantage in order to have decidedly higher value than purple items or lower. Personally, I would think that should make everyone happy - aside from the required effort needed for a short time of adjusting to the new "rules".

The Level of Upset

So, why are people so extremely upset about it? Mind you, the anger is about a bunch of changes of which we do not know at this point how many of these will actually make their way into the game or in what way, nor do we have any idea on a timeline in which they will be implemented into the game. Are people just upset because of change in general? 

I can see the argument about having to get used to the new mechanics. It will require a little bit of effort to get to know the new mechanics (unless you want to play mediocre and wait for the smart guys to come up with ready made solutions for you) and some players might have a certain fatigue related to the game and not want to put that amount of effort in it - fair enough. 

You have to try and test etc., but wait - isn't that exactly what a vast amount of people like so much about the game? Countless players theorycraft for hours on end, test commanders, swap troops, gear, recharge, test again, rinse & repeat. 

"Loss of Investment"

All that being said (and I have hinted at the following already), the argument that I am struggling with the most is the notion that you lose your investment. For one, we don't lose anything. If these mechanics get implemented into the game, we will still have the same shiny toys in our game safes. Just with different names and features, but the same value (in terms of quality/rarity) and number (you get all used pieces back as basic).

Yes, in some cases having known about such changes ahead of time might have caused you to hold on to some pieces instead of scrapping them for that one special effect you wanted to strengthen, but it is still not a loss because the value is on your account - nothing changed in that regard. (*Secret Tip: before it gets implemented, use an elven hammer to get that one piece out that you really want to get back)

More importantly though - why are we so fixated on the term "investment"? Investment is the process of using money with the aim to profit (=financially). Never have I played a game, paid for it (big or small amounts) and in the end gotten any money back. At that moment when you pull your credit card your money is gone. Of course you want good quality service for the money you spent - and I believe a game team who attempts to make the game enjoyable across the player base (not just for some of them) is good quality service. But thinking of it as an "investment" is too far fetched in my personal opinion. 

Perceived Value

So, what is it that we believe we gain when we pay money for (or "invest" into) a game like this? We make the transaction to buy a digital service in order to enhance the experience which we otherwise can enjoy for free as well. We buy ourselves an advantage over other players who either don't want to or who cannot spend (that amount of money). 

For some it might maybe carry the impression of "prestige" within the community or even power, but realistically we buy to get that instant gratification from progressing just a little bit faster and on top of that the satisfaction of being "stronger" than others.

Real Value

We established, what you get for spending on the game is extra service in terms of digital goods. The basic service provided by the game developers is that we can use their assets and enjoy your free time while doing so. This is for free. And here we come to, what I believe is (and in my opinion always should be) the real value we should consider as exchange for money spent: the opportunity to spend our time doing something we enjoy - you could call it a hobby. On top of this we are enabled to meet numerous people across the globe who have the same interests as we do, the option to find friends among them and at the very least the shared time while playing together and having fun. 

Can we gain these values otherwise than by spending on a mobile game? Of course. No doubt about that. However, we chose to play a mobile game. We chose to play this game specifically. We chose to stay in the community that came along with the game. In fact, we choose to do so every single day and every single time we log into the game - over and over again. And once we do not enjoy the process anymore - once we cannot get this value out of our "hobby" anymore -, it is probably time to find something else we enjoy better. Nothing wrong about that. That's how things go.

If that happens to be the case, we cannot blame anyone. There is no one to blame. And unless the game team changes the graphics into obnoxiously poor quality or anything the like, they are still providing us with the same service that we chose in the beginning. 

For me this PBE server and the changes implemented into it show that the game team still cares about the game. There is still the needed passion to make things better along the road. To value this effort and passion I do not have to agree with all of their ideas. I have always the option to give positive feedback (which may very well be criticism) and bring sound arguments why I think it is a bad idea to bring idea x, y, z into the live servers.

Conclusion

Personally I believe it is not worth to get upset about these changes. Do I like them all? Certainly not. Do I hate them all? Certainly not that either. For the time being, let's just give it a try and if the game is really terrible after these changes were made and pushed into the live servers and we played it for a while, then we can maybe get upset. Or, instead we could also just see if we can find something else to occupy our minds with and maybe we can do it even with some of the friends we met in RtW. But for now, let's just keep playing and see where things go - or like younger folks than me might put it: "chillaaaaaxxxx". 

* Disclaimer:
This article is my personal opinion based on the impending changes to the game as implemented in the test environment PBE server [The New Age]. Unless stated otherwise, these features are not available in live servers at the time of publication.

Basics - [The New Age] PBE: Changes

This week the new Testing Server "[The New Age] PBE" launched and a limited group of people have the opportunity to test out new game mechanics and different game play.

Enroll for PBE

You can't enroll for PBE at the moment. There was a timeframe within which you could apply for it between July 26 and August 6 this year. If you were chosen, you received a message in game.

The server was meant to go live a few weeks ago, but got delayed and finally launched this week on Thursday, Aug 31. 

First Login

If you have been chosen as a tester, you can now use all your commanders and inventory from the account you used to apply for it and test the new game mechanics.

Basically your complete game safe was cloned for the test server and acts now independently from your main account.

Here is where you can log into the PBE server: it is listed in the server list options on your login interface when you open the game.

The "clone" for PBE will be deleted after the testing period. Any changes you make to this version of your account will be lost eventually. There will be no option to spend money on it, so no reason to worry about this.

Before we head into the changes introduced to the test server we have to clearly know one thing:

• This is not going to be the final version. Theoretically anywhere from everything to nothing could be implemented as final content.
  However, if we're being realistic, a good part will be implemented and we also know that these changes are not all the changes that are waiting for us.

At the end of the day, the status of current changes in test server will not be the final version. So everything should be taken with the knowledge that nothing is set in stone. 

What are the major changes in PBE?

1. Gear

The gear has been changed completely. The basic stats of every piece are changed, though somewhat resemble previous stats. The biggest change with gear is the refinement of special effects. In PBE there is no refining (currently we can also not strengthen any pieces). You received for every refine level the amount of pieces into your inventory that have been used for that level. Example: If you had a 5* refined Mirkwood Bow, this means you have now a 5* strengthened Mirkwood Bow with one random special effect from the new list plus additionally 9 Mirkwood Bows with random special effects from the new effect list - all of them in basic status. 

Let's have a look at the basic stats by example of the Mirkwood Bow.

 

As you can see, the stats changed. This is to cater to the new way of fighting (see more below).

But most important to know: You still have the same value/amount of items in your inventory, only with other effects. 

N.B.: I will release an article within the next days which lists all the special effects and some basics on how to read gear as well as how to use it. All of that would be too much for the scope of this article. - Stay tuned!

2. Commanders

Another big change affects the commanders. Or rather more than one change concerns them. Most important: also here all respect levels were retained, which means you still have the same value in your game safe. 

2.1 Skill Trees

Their skill trees have been completely overhauled, although the basic titles were retained in most cases from what I could see so far. Although some have changed title skills, which seems an improvement towards usability of the respective commander in the cases that I found (e.g. Hirgon's bottom R0 tree).

However, all the subskills were scrapped. Instead you can now level the commander titles (as usual 2x R0, 1x R3, 1x R5) up to level 10. Each level requires 3 points, which means to max out one title you need at 30 points from respect levels or experience levels.

By reaching level 5 and 10 respectively with your title you get another extra skill/buff for both milestones, depending the commander and title. See here a random example:
 =>

Hirgon's R5 tree and subskills to the left compared to the new R5 Title to the right

If you did your math along the way, you noticed how the maxed title requires now 30 pts. while the title plus both subskills mixed in the traditional version costs 29 pts. This is a change I personally am not fully happy with as I believe the cost per skill-level are too high. There is definitely some room for improvement.

2.2 Leveling your commander

The maximum EXP level for each commander that you can reach with PvE, scrolls or mind sharpener is level 40 in PBE. After that you can only gain more EXP by fighting in PvP.

2.3 Combat role of your commander

The Commanders are now active part of the fight, which means they take damage like troops (see more later). To enable this the commanders now have also attack, defense, HP etc. - like your troops do. Let's pick a commander that I have at the same level in both games to see the difference better. I stripped them both of their gear to show the raw stats at this level: 

* I imply that the effects of all stats are known for the traditional version.

In the descriptions for the commander stats in PBE you can see which stat affects a commanders formation (i.e. himself and his army) and how. 

What does the commander page look like in the game? - Pretty much the same, except that the stats are displayed additionally to what was there before and in line with the changes needed.

2.4 Unique Items

As you can also see, there is a 5th gear slot now. This is reserved for your commander's unique, which means that you now can make use of the gear piece even if it wasn't BiS before, now it will definitely be useful and for those who made "poor" decisions prior, they can now at least throw it in and put it to use.

Now, this can be arguably an advantage for spenders - and ofc for the game team. Though, considering how many complaints there were on how many uniques are not really viable to try them out, this feels like a good change for me personally. I am sure there are counter arguments available. 

2.5 Other Commander-related changes

Now, if you paid attention to the screenshots, you might have noticed two other things. 

One of them is definitely a grievance for those who had it on all (or almost all) their commanders: Impart Wisdom / Gear Familiarity. This is not a thing in PBE. It also means however, that the 4 skill points are lost. I wrote already a feedback to the game team on this one and I could imagine that many people might not be happy as we dunked a lot of gear into this.

Another point, might also be a grievance, though pure speculation at this point. The indicator is subtle and we cannot be 100% certain what it means: the arrow next to the respect level. It suggests, that the respect level will go beyond 25 in future. We do not know if that is going to happen, but many already predicted it to happen at some point and here goes my "well played" to those who collected the items already in preparation for this because I am almost certain a respect level increase will roll out into regular servers rather sooner than later. Personally I would not happy about this, others might. What it would mean for sure is that it could land Netease more money if the player base bites and actually works towards higher respect, which at least the big whales and kraken who keep playing are likely going to do. (* Disclaimer: This is speculation on my part.)

3. Army Formation

This is by far one of the biggest changes together with the gear and skill tree overhaul. These three changes also go very strongly hand-in-hand as they build on each other.

Your army in PBE looks vastly different from what you know. In short: your commander leads one army within his formation (= one single unit type/troop type). Your whole march is led by one commander who can lead up to three other formations, each with one commander and one troop type respectively. 

So the new setup of your whole march is:

• Formation 1: Leading commander + 1 troop type
• Formation 2: Supporting commander 1 + 1 troop type
• Formation 3: Supporting commander 2 + 1 troop type
• Formation 4: Supporting commander 3 + 1 troop type

To give a visual on what this looks like, here the reinforcement screen: 

What you now have to do is, find the best synergy between leading and supporting commanders as well as their respective troops and the gear they are wearing. I find it challenging, interesting and a fun thing to do. From what I understand however, I am not a majority speaker on this one.

To go into this topic in depth would be way out of scope for this article. However, most important take away are these points:

• Validation of your commanders that have been warming the bench because they just didn't cut it
• Racial synergy is going to be very important to have feasible combinations
• Army type bonuses are very important to synergize with your commander and their buffs towards their own and allied formations
• Gear synergy is very important now

At the end of the day the new game mechanics will require some new game play by players, thinking outside the box and the ability to adapt to the new settings.

4. Other Changes in PBE

4.1 Stamina => Energy

Another big change is the "merge" of Stamina and Ability Points. Your commanders to not have any stamina anymore and you also do not have any Ability Points anymore. Instead you have a big pot of Energy, which allows you to use this energy on your commanders or any other type of moves at your discretion. 

What this means is that you can path with whatever commander you use, it has no negative or positive impact on your commander's availability for fights. 

In below table you can see which action costs energy and how much. The original maximum of your energy is 300. By giving ring points you can raise this to 600 maxed. For testing purposes we get the cap raised by another 300 in PBE, which usually you would get only in the first 24h.

The energy replaces Stamina and AP. Accordingly also the level 10 Ring tree was adjusted. Where you would usually raise the cap for AP you now raise the cap for energy in the same way. 

This has different aspects to consider. You now have a limited amount of moves you can make. However, it doesn't matter with which commander you make these moves. You can just keep going with that one commander. This results in the fact that it doesn't matter if you're a lower spender and don't have as many commanders unlocked. You can still make the same amount of moves as a big whale who has every single commander unlocked. 

Endless tile wars will be significantly reduced - because it doesn't matter if you have 20 or 30 commanders sitting in your base while the opponent is trying to fight you with his or her 4-6 commanders. They have the same amount of moves available as you have.

4.2 Multi Queues

Quality of Life - multiple queues of the same troop. In short: I absolutely fricking love it. 

No more crutching on t2 troops or having to wait for ages to refill your queues with the risk of forgetting them. You fill four queues of the same (or different, just as you like it) troop type and a few hours later your barracks are filled with fresh and shiny new troops in a nice number, that let's you actually work with them. Especially those using DD with e.g. Guardians will be hyped about this. 

5. Changes unrelated to PBE ...

... that you might have missed so far. These changes are already in live servers, but some of you might never have seen some of them at play. That's why I'm mentioning them shortly.

5.1 The Mist

When you log in first, you see your settlement in a sea of mist. This mist can be dispersed at no cost (aside from your effort to click the buttons) and it reveals some map events that you have to solve similar to the "Surprise" gifts that have been introduced a while back. 

While the dispersing of the mist is a bit tedious, given the fact that it presents you with a bunch of resources, troops, ring power, gold, a mathom coin and a stamina potion - no complaint from me.

5.2 Exp Scrolls

Anyone still in a server that doesn't have this? I'll mention it in case you haven't.
This has been rolled out across all (new) servers a few weeks ago, so most people should already know about it: once your server has progressed to a certain level, every day at server reset you get a specific amount of mobs, which will reward you with EXP scrolls in your tavern. To get them all you have to kill 9 mobs of a certain level daily.

5.3 Map/Region Control

You don't start with one or more regions owned on server start, but rather have to take over keeps first and a capital to start "painting the map". 

Summary

To recap the changes introduced in PBE: complete gear rework, major commander skill tree changes, new battle mechanics the introduction of Energy pool in place of Stamina/AP as main changes and multiple conscription queues for same troop type, exp levels past 40, unique item as separate slot as the smaller ones. 

Please read Opinion - [The New Age] PBE-Changes for my personal take on all these changes and the uproar connected to them that is surging across the community.

* This Article is about the changes implemented in the test environment PBE server [The New Age]. Unless stated otherwise, these features are not available in live servers at the time of publication.

Basics: Campaign "Rings of Power: Kingdom of Men"

In my fellowship UNGO under Phoenix'* leadership we are about to start our first adventure into NRP. To be precise: the campaign "Rings of Power: Kingdom of Men" (I will call it KoM from here on). 

*visit Phoenix' YouTube channel and subscribe/watch our season start streams on Aug 4th

Most of us never played NRP. Some of us may not even particularly like the concept of NRP for various reasons. However, we aim to enter this adventure with an open mind and fresh spirit, excited for the unknown, yet eager to get as much information as possible before the season starts. We don't want to fall into potential traps that might be waiting for us.

To gather the information we needed I conferred with two friends who both have played the season before:

• Neal13 (aka DaRealDealNeal) from TIME is a very seasoned player with great knowledge of  commander builds and strategy; he played the campaign when it was first released in 2022. 
• T, a former UNGO member, who is also a very seasoned player and exceptionally good at season starts; he played the campaign just recently with another team.

I bothered both with a lot of questions and hereby want to thank them for their patience and for sharing what they remember and have recollected from their own experiences with this particular campaign. 

The other main sources are in game explanations and patch notes shared by the developers via the official discord.

Larger Map

The map in KoM is significantly bigger than in any of the previous campaigns that had been published. This allows for more space to farm or for more people to play - whichever way it turns out to happen.

In the Northwest you have the region around Annúminas (aqua), which has borders with Orthanc (orange), Dol Guldur (green, not a region you can choose to spawn) and a tiny piece of border with Kineland in the Northeast (light green).

Aside from the short border patch with Annúminas, Kineland shares only borders with Dol Guldur and Madh Ortogh (yellow).

In the center of the map you have Osgiliath (lavender), which borders Dol Amroth in the South (blue). 

Lastly in the far South you have Umbar in the West (grey) and the vast desert lands of Haradabad in the East (red).

As you know, each regions comes with different advantages. Every "Ring" (capital) will give different buffs to its established kingdom.

When the campaign was first released, every kingdom was able to hold up to 5 teams (fellowships/warbands). Very quickly this was reduced to 3 teams maximum per kingdom and just recently this was reduced once again to one kingdom-creating team which can invite one other team into their kingdom - allowing for 2 fellowships/warbands total per kingdom (= 200 players).

But enough on the introduction. Let's have a look at the most pressing questions that we faced from our fellowship members or mechanics that I encountered by talking with friends and checking the patch notes and other informations.

1. Season Start

You start with the option in game to choose the region you spawn in. Usually you would be joining with your fellowship or warband and your leadership will have determined which greater region you will aim for as a team. 

Within these greater regions you are more or less free to choose your regions where you want to spawn. Some regions (controlled by the keeps as you know it) will be unavailable to spawn into and others are free choice.

 

 

 

 

In our team we aimed to distribute the players roughly evenly in order to avoid early game issues with too many people sitting on top of each other and no one finding enough tiles to farm. How this is organized by your team may be slightly different. However, the most important part is to spawn in the correct region because if you are in a region that counts towards another capital, you will not be able to join your fellowship/warband. 

The game only allows to recruit players who either sit in the greater region where your leader is located, or in a region that was already occupied by your team. As you know it might take a while until some of the keeps can be claimed.

Thus: make sure you follow the announcements of your team's leadership in order to not be left out in the cold.

2. First Day of Grind

After spawn you start your grind as usual. The major difference that you will find is that you start with both Men and Evil Men troops. For the early game chapter progress you only have to pick one of them in order to unlock the next buildings.

Once you reach MH 4 or 5 (we were not sure about that) you can start building the embassies for the races you want to hire (e.g. for dwarfes, elves, or also any of the evil alignment’s troops). With the embassy built you can start building camps outside your base. The camps can be upgraded like the quarter/troop buildings inside your base.

If a camp gets deleted by you or destroyed by an enemy, you can simply rebuild it for relatively cheap resources. It will retain the level you had before = you do not have to start over from fresh. However, if you had queues active for hiring in them, you might only get part of the hired troops (usually for neutrals you get those commands that had been finished). What I personally do is I start shorter queues while I know I am actively playing and just start a new queue every hour or two.

Side note: This is also something I advise for neutral camps in general if you need troops in your base quicker. Hire one type of troops in a number that takes maybe an hour, then instantly "recall" them as soon as they are marching to your base and fill the queue again. Then you don't have to wait 8 hours for a full queue to finish and can use these troops already. The speed recalls should be plenty if you do your swipes of mobs frequently. 

3. Do you have to build all troop buildings?

Easy answer: No.

You pick and choose the troop buildings according to what you need for your own commander line-up. If you have only dwarven commanders and don't use elves on them, no point in building the elven troop buildings. You can save those resources for other buildings and grow faster or you use them for your queues to fill and get your barracks filled.

My advice: Try to make a plan on which troops you will need with your commanders throughout the season. Consider which ones you will need first - likely the focus during very early season will be on PvE. Make a plan on where to spend your resources in order to be able to manage them well. If you make that plan before your season starts, you wont have to figure it out during the grind. 

The troops in your base are trained via the conscription queues, while troops in the camps outside your base have to be hired. However, only neutral troops cost gold, the regular troops (good or evil) do not require gold.

4. T4 Troops

In KoM you have the possibility to get additional t4 troops from the mobs around you. This works with a mechanic called "Conversion", a ring ability. Converting the troops means you convince the mobs near your base to join you as soldiers. 

The ability is in the left upper corner of your ring tree. To activate it you need 1 ring point. 

To convert the mob you click on the mob, pick the option "Ring" and then choose "Conversion" to convert the mobs into your soldiers. This conversion costs 10 AP per activation.

5. Neutrals

There are different ways to obtain neutral troops

• You take a native camp 
• Fellowship members obtain native camps and hire 1000 commands -> you can build a camp for yourself as well
• Fellowship leader unlocks the neutral units in the Employment Hall, which allows you to hire up to 60 command per day in total (across all three types) -- NEW MECHANIC

6. Hiring/Conscription Queues

Once you reached the required level you have 

• up to 4 conscription queues and 
• up to 4 hiring queues available

7. Keeps/Regional Control

To take control over a region your team/kingdom has to

• take over all scout towers/control points within the region
• take over the keep that controls the region

8. Building a Kingdom

Taking control over a capital/ring will allow your leader to create a kingdom. Your kingdom can then recruit ONE other team as partner within our kingdom. Alternatively you can join another team's kingdom if they invite you.

The Kingdom has the same functionalities as a fellowship. This includes helping others and the contribution by helping them. 

By getting control over a capital, you automatically acquire the ring that belongs to it. These rings come with different buffs: active skills (launched by the king) and passive skills (constant buffs).

Active Skills:

• Powerful Treatment: choose an adjacent region of your kingdom to activate the buff. Members of the kingdom heal 50% of wounded soldiers after winning a battle in that region. 

• Resource Power: Members of the kingdom gain resources yield +50%. 

• Construction Support: Choose a region fully controlled by your kingdom to activate the buff. Members of the kingdom receive construction speed +50% while building forts in the region.

• Powerful Repression: Choose a region fully controlled by your Kingdom to activate the buff. Members who are not part of your kingdom can't reinforce in this region.

Passive Skills:

• Kingdom Protection: Tacticians gain buffs including Relocation, Movement Speed +, Quick March, and Kingdom Protection in the regions that are fully controlled by the Kingdom. 

• Ring Empowerment: All members' personal Ability Point limit receives +1 for each Ring of Power controlled by the kingdom (maximum: +5). All members' personal Ability Point limit receives +5 when the kingdom controls Dol Guldur.

9. Losing the Capital

Losing your capital will cause the kingdom to get destroyed and you lose the buffs that came with the capital. Once you regain control over the capital or another capital, you can re-establish a new kingdom and start over.

10. Territory Protection

In KoM your territory within the main kingdom area has some protection mechanisms. These mechanisms apply to the capital and all regions that are linked to the capital regions. This means a region that does not border to the main area under your control will NOT have these protection mechanisms.

11. Tiles in Enemy Regions – NEW Mechanic since 7/26

If you have tiles in enemy regions, these will receive the status “blocked”. Blocked tiles will have the effect that no one can jump on them. You can move to your own tiles and use them to path further. However, fellowship/kingdom members will NOT be able to path from your blocked tiles.

If you have tiles adjacent to blocked tiles, you can link them with a “land order”. 

As I said, this was implemented on 7/26, which means it is a very new feature and we have not played with it yet. I will test in game and update this article later when we found out the concrete mechanics.

What we do know at this point is that this will give some mild security if there are enemy tiles in regions controlled by you within your own kingdom. On the other hand it will make it harder for you to path through enemy lands as you have to first path to a fellowship member's tile and link your tiles with theirs by using the option "land order".

Kingdom Strategy

As last point I would like to suggest a way on how to approach the season from a leadership point of view. In my personal opinion it is advisable for the registered teams to coordinate their chosen spawn regions. While you can of course just go in with your team and yolo it, it seems to be a fairly good idea to share spawn locations and potentially pivot in case the region would be too crowded.

What would happen if two pairs of kingdom-partners decided to spawn in one region? If all four teams are full teams of 100 players, that is a lot of players and very likely not all will fit. This can result in the teams not getting everyone in. Now, since a fellowship/warband can only recruit members that are located in the same greater region or in a region under control of that team, this would result in members floating around without the option to join your team. It weakens you and your team. It also weakens all the other teams in that region because they would all face the same problem.

Therefore, I think it is the smarter play for all teams to collaborate for a start that is as smooth as possible for all teams. The ultimate goal should be a fun season and you won't have a fun season if you either lose terribly, or struggle getting your pals into your team or even if you steamroll a server. In the latter case you will just be afk most of the season, which is not why we all play the game. 

Of course you have to go with your own strategy and maybe with a smaller server going in the YOLO way may be a viable option and still provide some fun. It definitely will also depend a bit on how well the registration got filled up.