Play on extreme mode. Buy any monkey type. Place them in the frontline. They miss everything. You Die. Repeat.

I give it a 15/10.

Holdfast: Nations At War

TL:DR: I am not very thrilled with how this game has turned out to be, as the game actually had great potential to be a long lasting game, that sadly, due to the lack of fast as well as good updates, has turned the game into a boring mess.

Public Servers:
The Game Does what is says, walk around, shoot people, kill people, that's about it. Maybe mix some voip-spam in there here and then and you good to go. That is really just about it. Not my style, but it might be yours.

Opinion Based on Private Linebattles:
I started playing back in 2018 and has since played it in the same regiments since then. As all games has there will be ups and downs, but this game particularly, has only had downs.

I first started out playing on the public servers as all new-comers to the game does. Here I got a first glance at what the Holdfast community had to offer and soon enough I got picked up by a regiment that introduced me to something called "private linebattles".

You probably got introduced to Holdfast through youtube videos showcasing this more casual and voip-spamming game, that holdfast is. But behind the scenes, and 20 hours of public servers and "Erica" and "Caramella dansen" played on repeat, Holdfast gets rather boring.

That is why something like the "private linebattles" were such an interesting idea that got me hooked instantly.

Private vs Public - Raw statistics:
Private Linebattles are a linebattle style originating from regiments interest in competing against eachothers. If you take a look at Holdfast player count, you can see that it the game peaks about 20:00-21:00 CET (19:00-20 GMT) and once again at 02:00-03:00 CET (01:00-02:00 GMT or 11 PM - 12 PM EST). This where the private linebattles are hosted - average. Most regiments train 1 hour prior to events or have events from about 18:00-21:00 CET (17-20 GMT). This would insinuate that the private servers would be prioritised, whenever the updates arrived? Right?

In certain cases, it does. I can't be too biased. The "Mod" update and Skins updates are usually a treat for the regiments. But in more important cases (where it is primarily mechanical updates) the game does NOT treat the private regiments very well, and actually focus heavily on the public: A good example for this could be the "Role Update" where new stats to roles were introdcuced, so the roles (like guards) had a unique benefit to them, instead of being just a reskin. This update is still a mess and needs a rework. Something like the Light Infantry is still very useless in private linebattles, but works very well in public. Riflemen are too overpowered, Marines don't do much, Guards are just better, because line infantry are just bad and grenadiers is just good.

The issue here is that it works well in public, but terrible in private. Combined with the knowledge that the game mostly survives on the private community keeping it alive (by the previous comment about the player count), I do believe something like this was a blow to the private community. To make all matters worse, they introduced a "Frontlines" game that sadly had nothing to do Napoleonic which the Private Servers are heavily interested in, and was really not something the community asked for. The "Cav" update was messy and buggy, and to this day still are. The musket smokes in the new update are terrible. Artillery hasn't had a good update since fireworks, but even then, the fireworks were and still are awful. Auxiliaries don't give that big of a buff - like muscians are supposed to make the line members shoot better, but guess what, it really doesn't - flag bearer are supposed to give better reload speed, but once again doesnt - and Surgeons can now heal themselves, that is actually good!!

So, you can see I have a grudge against the game nowadays. But all they have to do is keep the private community interested, instead of focusing heavily on the public servers, that doesn't buy their DLCs or play their game daily as much as we in the private does.