Leveling Suggestion!

Might as well just continue to play FE if random traits are your thing.

I think you can have both together, if the designers are OK with it.  It changes balance, but it definitely adds excitement.  FE is inferior in a lot of ways already.  Who knows, maybe someone with modding skills will see this and implement it....

Another idea would be for a random stats increase instead of trait, and make it pretty small (like +1).

I like the excitement randomness brings to the table, but thankful for a more strategic stats progression.

I think the HoMM solution would work here. Instead of allowing all available traits to be choosen, force to choose among 3 or 4 randomly selected of the "choosable" ones.

So if for example there are 8 traits your hero qualifies to choose, you will be limited to choose among 4 of them. That's a compromise between absolute random and boring unrandomness, allows you some degree of control but at the same time brings the fun of not fully knowing what traits you will be offered.

In the UI, you would see the traits tree like it is now, but the traits that are not choosable for this level up would say something like "Trait can't be selected this time, hope it will be available on your next level up".

Traits could be weightened so traits with higher weight are offered more often, but traits with lower weight still have a chance of being offered. Those weights could be defined at the faction level, so a faction that favours summoning would be offered summon traits more often, but even the less summon-oriented factions could still try to follow that path.

I agree with Asmal... if you want random, just continue to play FE.

I really like this new system of leveling, it allows you to plan out what you want to do with a champion/soverign when they level. The randomness will interfere with that, and possibly to a large degree.

The only thing I do agree on is possibly adding a third "tab" at a late level (like 25 or something along those lines) which would allow the champion/soverign to choose a third ability path.

I do worry that this method of leveling heroes will result in somewhat less longevity for the game - once I have a good idea of the relative strengths of the different levelup skills, then it is likely that one warrior from one game will end up very much like another warrior from another game.

Maybe one could have a random factor in how the levelup skilltree is constructed for each hero? That could lead to different heroes being different, but still allow one to choose from a skilltree.

The thing is, everything else about LH is an improvement, but the lack of random level-ups could easily end up making the hero game less fun, and will result in generic heroes for the most part (I can see exceptions)

I still think it's too early to tell, but if the concept got scrapped I'd be ok with it, after some time to see if it does work.

I really don't want to feel like i have to choose between two different games where each one has something I'm dissatisfied with, or hope someone mods the LH content into FE.

The non-random traits also make heroes slightly less powerful in general, because you can't get those great traits early.  This may be more of an issue with the trees themselves (balancing issue) and less the idea itself.  It takes too many levels to get to the fun stuff.

Gotta remember this is beta 1, the devs haven't seen the issues yet, we come up with ideas they don't.   I do think the hero game is going to end up less fun at the current rate, but I don't want to abandon the idea just yet.  (also no idea how much it would cost to revert if it proves unfun)

Trying to be diplomatic about things, but I agree with the OP.   My big fear right now is that we end up with a game that is a 90% upgrade,but the 10% downgrade turns me off of both games.  (As a fan of the King of Fighters series, I've seen this happen to me)

Right now I feel pretty strongly that the dev team needs to at least keep under consideration scrapping this idea, even if it's one of the big changes.

so... who else just takes the 3 Potential traits as the first 3 choices?

that's the problem with non-randomized level ups.  All hero's will basically follow the same paths through the trait tree.  Who would bother with the magic defense when you can go get army dodging first?

Response to your first line:  LH does so many things better than FE, I don't want to play FE anymore

To you second line:  No, it wouldn't ruin it, it would supplement it.  if you don't want to pick the random trait, don't!  Just stick to the pre-designed paths.

To your third line:  That would be a nice compromise, I suppose.  My complaint would be, then you're picking all the basic abilities from another path, and you have to work you way up it to get to the really cool abilities in that path, it would take forever.  Or at least a ton of mana, to keep spamming the + XP spell on that hero, as I like to do in end game

If implemented the way I suggested, your hero could already be 3 or 4 upgrades up a path by L 25, or maybe it would even randomly suggest upgrades from partway up a tree.  I've recruited heroes that had powers without their prerequisites, no reason that couldn't happen randomly once in a while.

Edited to fix a typo, sorry! (Twice, lol)

This is a very good point, without at least a little bit of randomness, it is going to make for a lot of cookie cutter heroes.  Also, if you're really looking to maximize XP, get someone to Air 2 as fast a possible, for tutelage.  And if they are a Mage, get them knowledge... and then have them spam potential .  It does make the mid levels hard though, getting lots of XP but having no strong spells to kill anything with.  So it is a choice with drawbacks!

One possible solution:

give each champion a unique tree in addition to the generic ones, some champs start out with unique promotions like Loremaster or Skilled Swordsman, let them go up those trees whatever they pick.

I like this idea, but of course, the min-maxer in me would want to know each hero's unique tree before I pick them.  After all, there is a big difference between a warrior with a path from the assassin tree, and a warrior with a path from the mage tree.

My usual plan is to have them hang out in the back and soak up that XP until they're useful.

The unique tree would be part of their special skills , which you can see on the champ selection screen.

My other suggestion would be to make the fame requirements for champions higher so they don't come so often, maybe get rid of the 10 fame to get your first champ.

Hey, no way!  That first champ is a big part of the early game!  Taking away that first champ, from the tower of dominion, would really slow down early game play, I feel.  Even Elemental and FE pretty much ALWAYS had one champ nearby your starting location, I think.