After reading several posts, I think I see a great opportunity for a new addition to the game. Trait stones are supposed to be pseudo kingdom specific, and some requests have gone around for a better way to get them. Also I am seeing some requests for more “PvE” endgame content. Based on experience with other games, people seem to like the concept of an “endless” or “horde” mode gameplay element which GoW does not currently have.
Combining all this together while watching code run at work left me with the following skeleton of a suggestion:
A kingdom based endless mode similar to challenges, but more random and well… endless. Rewards would be primarily traitstones with some other resources relative to the kingdom thrown in (base it off their tribute).
So the player after careful consideration of possible rewards in the realm of gold, glory, souls, and trait stones would choose a kingdom to play in. They would then engage in successive battles against random creatures (4 at a time) from that kingdom. Each of these would be a “wave”. After each wave a new set of 4 creatures (from that kingdom only) would be chosen and their levels would be advanced. Eventually traits would be added in as well as ascended versions of the troops. Perhaps after all troops are coming out mythic with full traits and the player is still winning successive waves start to experience difficulty type increases (+5% stats per wave, etc).
The only healing applied to the player’s troops would be what they bring with them, and lost troops would not be replaced. The player would be responsible for coming up with a team strategy hardened enough to survive the loss of troops as well as consider healing / life / armor gain. Boosts to cards would have to be considered, clearly if someone spent the “Easy” tiers powering up an immense insert buffable monster here that would be a problem for later tiers. Perhaps buffed stats would lose half their buffed value or something, I really don’t have a great answer there and am interested in what peeps think would work.
Rewards would be some kind of random roll based on overall waves cleared as well as specific waves cleared. Maybe waves 1 - 5 roll on minor trait stone tables, 10 - 15 roll on major tables, etc. (Those numbers would need some serious review and are for discussion purposes only) Each of these rolls would be factored higher in quantity based on the number of waves cleared to encourage people to go as far as possible. Gold / glory / souls payouts would be some function or roll based on the kingdom you are playing in.
Curious what other people think. I think it would be an interesting addition to the game that would also help some with a couple different requests I have seen for improvement. I am always for a way to structure my gameplay around the rewards I wish to achieve. Currently we have Arena for souls, Invade for Gold and glory, treasure maps for gems, and keys. Nothing really covers the trait stones because they are a new resource. Adding in a new mini game to go with them would be kind of interesting and fun.
Clearly not something I would expect to see tomorrow. Just kind of a food for thought the devs are welcome to laugh at, use, consider, or completely ignore. 
-Razlath