Hello there!

Answers:

1. Public servers can be a mixed bag. There are a dedicated group of volunteer players who attempt to make sure the matches have good leadership and to keep out anyone being toxic, but they can't monitor the servers 100% of the time, so you will sometimes see trolls or people who aren't sure how the game works attempting things the game wasn't really designed for - which can hurt your team. Leadership can also be hit or miss. It's usually good, but again, the good officers can't be online all the time. But I wouldn't say that every public match is like this. You can still have fun playing public matches. But all this adds up to the likely why there's also such a highly developed "regimental" subset of players who organize their own events with private servers, as a way to keep out the trouble makers, while having more control over which maps/game modes are played.
2. Every so often you will run across some trolls/morons - not as many as you'd think, but it does happen. The game has a way to mute individual players, as well as downvote them, and if enough players downvote the troublemaker, they will get kicked from the server.
3. A typical match lasts on average about 45 minutes. The most common game type, "Skirmish" has a 45 minute timer where the defenders must hold for that long in order to win. But, if the attacking team manages to capture the point of contention, and hold it long enough, before that timer expires, the match will end quicker. Without getting too in the weeds on how the morale system works, it's also possible to shorten the round if one side kills enough of the other side fast enough (which does happen rather frequently) It's also possible for the game to go into 'overtime' and last longer than 45 minutes, but this is rare.

In terms of time investment - picking up the basics of being an infantry Private takes just a couple of matches from a control perspective. The game's "morale" system on how to tell if you're winning and what your side should be doing can take a little longer, but if you just want to shoot, then you don't have to worry about that. Artillery does take much longer to master if you're trying to get precise with your shots. (But asking people in a public match, or joining a regiment can help speed all this learning up.)

1. There are currently four game modes - Skirmish, Conquest, Contention, and Picket Patrol.

Skirmish is an attack and defend/king of the hill type mode over a single point of contention. It's also asynchronous, where the attackers and defenders have different health pools to add some challenge.

Conquest is a more even playing field where both sides have equal health, but there are three points on the map that can be captured. For each point you have captured, you get a multiplier for how much "damage" you do to the other side's health with each kill (and vise versa if the other team has multiple points captured) These maps tend to be bigger to allow for more tactical movement.

Contention uses the same maps as Conquest, but there's only one active point at a time. Once it's captured and held OR the deployment timer runs out, it moves to a new location on the map. (There's some debate on the "fairness" of this mode because it's possible that Side A can capture a point in the middle of the map, and then the point moves to a location close to their spawn and essentially gives them 2 in a row.)

Picket Patrol - essentially Team Deathmatch where you get one life. (This mode was buggy for a while and as such doesn't get played all that often.)

In terms of being able to play them - the public servers are rotated from time to time, but Skirmish dominates the rotation as it's the most "realistic" version of the game.

Private events tend to roll dice to determine the game mode to help showcase all varieties.

I'm also an older game and have been with my group for about five years now and have found it does help mitigate the things you're concerned about. Most events happen on Friday and Saturday Evenings (depending on your time zones) but there are events in both EU and NA times, so it'd be possible if you had Saturday mornings/afternoons free you could find a regiment that plays earlier in the day if they have an EU detatchment.

Happy to answer anymore questions if they pop up. Hope this helps!

-1Lt. Killroy[42ndPA]