Well this is how I see it: the beauty of LOTR is that the scoring stays fairly balanced until Valinor Multiball. If you reach that, you can score 300M-400M easily on just that mode within minutes. Otherwise it's playing long and hard to reach 1B. I was stuck a long time on anywhere from 500M-800M max, even with knowing the ruleset thoroughly. I don't know what got me over the 1B hump, but I had a stretch where I was in the zone for a couple of games. When I give it a casual spin now, I reach 300-400M max. So there's also a bit of practice involved. When I'm really into this pin, I can precisely make the shots I want from both flippers. Another thing is that with the first couple of VP versions from JP and GRONI, the sword ramp was real hard to make, a lot of balls rolled back and drained straight down the middle. This is now much better in for example the latest version by JP.
These are some scoring tips:
- know exactly how to get extra balls and go for them hard! (7 Tower hits, completing enough ramps and loops in Ring Frenzy before collecting Jackpot, finishing Ring Multiball-Elven Gift which takes around 10 shots to the Ring, getting the extra ball directly from an Elven gift), they are sometimes hard to get and not all are mentioned in the rulesheet but they are really important in this game to prolong life!
- know how to combine multiballs with modes and score modifiers. Double playfield (Elven Gift) with Gollum MB (double scoring), any nice-scoring Ring mode (Wargs, Ents) and a Movie Multiball with 3-4 balls will give you a lot of points and Elven Gifts for completing stuff!
- a nice trick is to reach nine human rings for Gollum MB but not starting it, then start another MB, like a movie MB, keeping Gollum to resurrect the MB when you drain to one ball
- keep track of targets for the the bonus modifier (ORC targets above bumper area), it's a detail but this can add up quickly and provide some nice extra points when drained
- practice the Ring Shot from both flippers, it starts modes, it completes Destroying the Ring, it's the central shot for Ring Multiball, it is crucial for resetting Victory Laps after winning a Movie MB, it's all important for There and Back Again.
- when completing a Movie MB, shoot for Super Jackpots and Victory Laps, then the millions will ramp up
I think it's one of the best tables around, for sheer depth of the ruleset and the great implementation of the license. Besides from that I'm just also a big Tolkien fan
Slam23
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