Greetings Ring-bearers!

Soon we’ll be introducing a new feature to The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth: Glyphs!

Glyphs introduce a new method to augment and tweak your characters and squads. They give you the ability to adjust individual attributes to play to strengths in synergy and stats, and customize a team to fit your strategy. By using Glyphs, each player will be able to differentiate their characters the way they want, making them unique and tailored to that player’s strategies and playstyle. 

Glyphs

Glyphs are items that grant powerful stats and passive effects, allowing customization of units on the battlefield. Players can imbue Glyphs onto a character’s unique Relic. Relics are personal, meaningful objects worthy of imbuement, defined per character. Each Relic has 6 slots for Glyphs, each having a unique shape that corresponds to a Glyph’s shape. 

Glyphs are unlocked at player level 25, and can only be used by characters who have also been leveled to 25. While there is no cost to place a Glyph in a Relic slot, there is a Gold cost to remove a Glyph once socketed if the Glyph is higher than level 1. 

Glyph Sets

Each Glyph is part of a Set that grants powerful bonuses. Glyphs of all 6 shapes can be found for each Set. From a high level, there are two categories of Sets:

• Major
  • Inscribed with Tengwar-inspired script
  • Requires 4 equipped Glyphs to activate

• Minor
  • Inscribed with Cirth-inspired script
  • Requires 2 equipped Glyphs to activate

When activated, Glyph Sets grant a unique Set Bonus. Set Bonuses for Major sets are significantly more powerful than Set Bonuses granted by Minor sets. Players will also be able to see what Set Bonuses are being provided to each character in battle. At most, a single character can only be equipped with 1 Major Set and 1 Minor Set, or 3 Minor Sets. (Set Bonuses do stack from having more than 1 of the same Minor set equipped.)

The initial Glyph Sets are:

(The below Set Bonuses are subject to change)

Major Sets

Minor Sets

Glyph Stats

In addition to Set Bonuses, Glyphs have both a single Primary Stat and up to four Secondary Stats. Each Glyph Shape dictates which Primary Stats are available to it. Primary Stats directly add to the stats of the unit, whereas Secondary Stats are a %-increase, multiplied after all other bonuses have been added. The Speed Secondary Stat is an exception to the rule, in that it is a Secondary Stat whose value is added to as opposed to being multiplied.

Potential stats are as follows:

Primary Stats (1 per Slot):

• Slot 1 - Health
• Slot 2 - Damage
• Slot 3 - Armor
• Slot 4 - Health, Damage, Armor or Focus
• Slot 5 - Health, Damage, Armor or Resistance
• Slot 6 - Health, Damage, Armor, Focus or Resistance

Secondary Stats (up to 4 types per Glyph):

• Health (% value)
• Damage (% value)
• Armor (% value)
• Focus (% value)
• Resistance (% value)
• Crit Chance (% value)
• Crit Damage (% value)
• Block Chance (% value)
• Block Mitigation (% value)
• Speed (flat value)

A quick note about Speed: Our intent with Glyphs is to give Players agency over their collections by allowing them to customize their gameplay. Speed is an integral part of that gameplay, and thereby an important piece of the puzzle. The values of Speed secondaries in the system will allow Players to change the order of units in combat, but are not so high that it will allow units to lap others on the battlefield. We are well aware of the power that comes with changing Speed, and are ever-cautious with the balance implications thereof. We will continue to monitor and adjust as required so changes may occur in the future regarding the balancing of Speed as a stat.

Leveling Glyphs

Each Glyph has a level that dictates the power and visuals of that Glyph. The Primary Stat of a Glyph is directly increased with Glyph level. Secondary Stats are added as the Glyph reaches specific levels, but once applied, each stack of a Secondary Stat will not change. There is a maximum of 4 different Secondary Stat types per Glyph, after revealing all of these types, additional rolls will be applied to one of the revealed types.Refer to the following Chart for upgrade information:

Upgrading Glyphs to level 5 only requires Gold. For level 6 and above, a new component called Spells are required in addition to Gold. Spells can be obtained via Guild Raids as rewards, the Supply Shop, or the Store.

(Imagery not final. Represents a game in development.)

Initially there are 3 types of Spells:

• Enchantment
• Illusion
• Sorcery

Various amounts of the above Spells will be needed to upgrade your Glyphs, with the costs increasing with the level of the Glyph.

Finally, Glyphs have a gear tier requirement in order to reach their full potential. This means that if a Glyph is level 2, it will require gear tier 2 (level 3 requires gear tier 3, and so on) to get the increase in Primary Stat. If a character’s gear tier is lower than the requirement, that character can still equip it, but the Primary Stat on the Glyph will be clamped to the equivalent of the highest Glyph level for which that character satisfies the gear tier requirement. Secondary Stats are unaffected by gear tier.

Finding / Managing Glyphs

Glyphs can be found on designated Normal and Hard nodes in the Light and Shadow campaigns. Glyphs and Spells can also be found as rewards from Guild Raids (eg, Mines of Moria Raid) as well as purchased from the Supply Shop or the Store.

(Example reward. Imagery not final. Represents a game in development.)

There is a limit to how many Glyphs a player can carry in their inventory at any given time. If you find yourself having an excess of Glyphs or wanting to make space, you can sell your Glyphs for Gold. The higher the Glyph level, the more Gold you’ll get for your Glyph. However, Spells will not be refunded when selling Glyphs. 

As a last note, in order to help players with managing their Glyphs, players will be able to set ‘Favorite Sets’ on a per-character basis. Any Favorite Sets will appear at the top of the set list for that character.

Parting Thoughts

We anticipate Glyphs to arrive in The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth in the coming month. With all aspects of the game, we truly value your feedback and are excited to see how you make use of this exciting new feature!

For the latest news, and all things The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth, be sure to follow us on X, Facebook and Instagram, as well as our Discord!

Includes in-game purchases (including random items). Abilities may require certain gear tiers to be reached.  Please see in-game for more details.

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