A few people have posted that it'l sort itself out because people will get bored, I'm here to say they most certainly won't. Planetside is a prime example of that, players are more than happy to stick with a massively overpopulated side if they keep winning. It doesn't bother them that they are only facing a few troops, they all get to shoot and be shot at, so the general player wont notice the difference. You either have to heavily penalise the overpopped faction or just have a hard coded limit because little else will work. I also think that people aren't fully comprehending how crippling it is to have a faction at 40%+ of the total pop. Think of it this way, if the space marines have 40% of the total pop and the 3 others will have 20% each (assuming they are all perfectly even which is very unlikely). This means that the SM's will have 2 troops for every 1 that the opposition fields (assuming a true 4 way fight) which is a huge advantage. The idea that faction alliances will beat down on the bigger guy also doesn't play out because there will always be small groups of players who will not want to fight the biggest guy and then whatever faction they attack has to pull back troops to defend their territory, which eventually devolves into 4 way fighting again.
Even The Largest Empire's in History have fallen against the Smaller one's as for alliances I can see Eldar and Orks working only if the Orks are being Manipulated by the Eldar and as for SM, well we all know there Views on Xeno's and Heretics.
If players are smart enough, eldar players and CSM/orks, will make a truce just to kill more SM. F*ck the lore
I see this as being more likely. Canon/lore aside, the players themselves may fix it if the devs don't force a fix. I'm huge into lore immersion in any fantasy/sci-fi setting I get into, but if the gameplay is failing because of it, then it won't hold up. Leaders of each faction will probably start talking, creating a huge team-speak and shove 3 factions up the SM rear. But like someone said, you'll have those little groups who don't care and run back to mess with the others. Works all around. Little groups will either fight each other or join the huge battle.
I have the half assed answer to population problems... NPCs!!!!!! Have AI controlled Ork boys, in the masses! Tonnes of them! AI controlled NPCs for all factions (AI controlled CSMs, Eldar, traitor guard, IG, etc.) could help even out the playing field if say the Space Marines get too many players. Thoughts?
I have a solution to this space marine mix, just take out space marines and put in tau. Now we don't have to worry about one team being overly populated.
I think they're going to have to put a lot of extra effort into classes, core mechanics, artwork and customization for the Orks and Eldar to draw more players to those factions. SM and CSM are similar in many ways, but the Orks and Eldar leave the developers a lot of room for working in truly unique artwork, mechanics and group synergy. They're on the right track in accomplishing this with Eldar, but I don't think the 4 base classes for Orks cut the mustard. Burna Boyz, Tankbustas, Meks, Ard Boyz, Skar Boyz, none of which are represented, and cannot be properly implemented as an offshoot from one of the existing classes. Say what they will, they can't implement a proper Storm Boyz class, or par with SM Assaulter, with all their progression and training points, in addition a proper Ard Boyz/Skarboyz type class being lumped in with the Stormboy. Just not enough training points to go around or enough room in their specific skills tree. Players will be forced to be a "jack of all trades, master of none".
