I would like to mention as disclaimer, this is not meant to attack the developer or mandate how the game should be designed, operated. This is merely going to be my experiences and state of thinking during the time of playing CBT. I would also like to congraulate Neris on a very successful CBT given Gotw’s history.
During my time in the CBT test I ran into minor physics issues that were already well known. I started to document bugs I came across on a notepad and noticed others were already doing good at catching most things. I decided to focus more on the structural flow of leveling a character.
My character name was Fyfe, I played a Knight int his CBT
Firstly I will address my experiences going from 1-13
Levels 1-5
I was getting my barings and relearning some of the game, this part of the game was rather plesant as there was not much to think about, I would quick strike vadons upto level 5.I decided to shift my build into a more tanky build with lower hit rate but higher strength. Vit being the priority stat. Skills didn’t seem too helpful in the beginning. They required that I have a shield and as the vender did not have a starter shield my class was an autoattack champion for a while. No skills were available for my sword which was a bummer as well. Not being able to transfer abilities also meant not having quickstrike anymore. Regardless this process went smooth
levels 5-10
At this point I was trying to desperately get a shield, constantly killing anything I could, I felt beefier because of HP and didn’t feel like DEF had much of an impact at all. At this time balance on mobs were set to 0 so I was a bit stronger due to the fact that they could skim me for almost no damage. At this point I killed bandits with no drops and vadons on the beach when my HP was lower. I also explored a little bit.
levels 10-13
By the point that i was level 10 bandits now had drops and It was good, I was making Rupee, I was clued in what enemy had the item I needed to make the shield, I had defensive stance, and shield strike I could now play my class. Eventually I moved onto merman but found that they hit extremely too hard causing me to have to potion chug. Eventually monster balance went up and I had to stick to bandits for the rest of CBT because everything was just too strong. Merman mages would 1 shot you, merman melee units would hit you for 1/3rd of your hp regardless of defense value. Despite this I still enjoyed my leveling experience.
Overall thougths on Knight class:
I feel like Knight is not very good, because of a lack of consistancy, Shield Strike was heavily RNG and while prontera books would show that it gets better, but its not consistant and not very fun. When it did save you it was clutch but its not reliable which goes against being a tank. Have had multiple conversations on DEF on discord but I feel like the Defense stat matters very little for sure in the early game. Its not possible to obtain an extremely high amount so I don’t know how it will feel in the mid game. Defense Stance more helped for the 10% block chance. Shield Reflect was bugged at the time, and I could not buy shield mastery as only level 3 was available in prontera and level 1 was missing. I did eventually get a small attack that chips some damage, meant to draw in hate. Due to not having parties I was not able to test this.
I’ve been trying to figure out the potential gameplay loop. and my current understanding if we assume this is the current route is that this version of Gotw2 will be a very party oriented game. I get this idea from the fact that enmity seems to play a big part in my class. Healers seem to have a regen, and I can consume a potion so this allows rapid HP restoration. So its probably meant for rapid killing of enemies blitzing them down before the tank dies. More gear options will probably give more clarity in the future.
Overall feelings on gameplay
I think the solo 1-10 loops is very well done, money grind is very fair and I didn’t feel like certain spots were overall better than others. Bandits did end up feeling like it topped off in the end as being best grindspot. I did find the overall grind not as exciting, if I wanted any part of the experience to be RNG I would have wished for drops to feel this way.
You had drops ranging from common to uncommon, this is based on the falacy of logical drops. I think that is okay if we are trying to be lore friendly, but its not fun to kill a monster that will never drop anything cool or good. I would hope in the future mobs of all levels will have extreme rare drops that are worth farming. it’s in the spirit of RO to give us that feeling of finding rare drops. Broken shield didnt count because it was mandatory, thankfully that was only uncommon.
Monster balancing didn’t feel very good but it was not terrible either, some mobs obviously need work, like mermaids, merman as they deal way too much damage. Mages should not hit you for way over your maximum HP instantly on auto attack, and mermaids range damage was dangerous if you were not already ontop of them. Ymirs cave was not fully operational as the monsters in there were slightly lower levels and could have made for some more options.
Having only 5 pieces of gear in all of CBT made it feel very bare bones but this may have been intentional as to control whats getting tested so I’ll wait to talk about gear until later CBT’s Despite my small issues with game balance I had a very fun time.
Server stability:
Absolutely amazing, it was more stable than YggRO2 and DivRO2 combined, physics were also less clunky. Water still is a bit clunky but Im sure its a WIP. I didn’t really have many crashing issues until the most recent patch. Not sure what changed in that but before that patch I never crashed once.
Last thoughts:
Things I would like to see improved for next CBT
- rare drops implemented to a variety of normal monsters
- more equipment available
- monster and player balance re-assessed and tested for both melee and casters
- longer timers on mini bosses/mini MVPs with better drops.
Things I would love to see implemented in the future of ymir
- Party system
- Transmogging gear (Kind of like auges but for armor)
- Custom Maps, Zones
- Crafting
- Skill transfer system
Anyway those were my thoughts on the CBT, it was a execellent ride and Neris did a great job on this project, I look forward to the next CBT and testing more of the game. 
So I appreciate any critique on that part, there’s still long way for me to learn all this.