The more Space Marines hopefully means the more buffs for us. If possible, I'll be using a combi-plasma. Give some nasty searing hot surprises to incoming assault marines. I'm thinking that the vast amount of people who will play as the FTP boyz aren't active members of the community, however I'll bet they'll make for a big number of the player base during launch.
as previously mentioned the Tyranids are going to help maintain the balance. However I do not think the lesser populated players should have any advantage in regards to how the class plays (although they are going for the most horizontal balance possible). In saying this, yes, there will most definitely be more Space Marines than Eldar but this will most certainly put the players at a disadvantage as opposed to their faction. The Eldar and other said lower population races should still be able to have full size fights (eg. 500 vs 500), just they'll have fewer places where they can have their forces at, so if they choose wisely they can win fights just as easily as anyone else. (Space Marines will have more places for force placement). I think that's how it balances out anyways, however in regards to the capturing of world assets I'm not sure how that'll work as due to the force placements it is more than likely Space Marines will get more than Eldar per say... So Eldar may need a boost in that field somehow.
I like the idea of lower requisition costs and faster respawn times. Faster respawns should definetly be in there as they could make it seem as if they have more players since they are jumping out the gates faster than the opposing side can with their troops. We can assume that with less players, they'll normally have less of the map conquered which in turn means less resources. If we drop the cost of items for them, then they would be on an equal field as well. Not so low that everyone gets a fire prism but an equal percentage of total armys resources versus cost of individual items. Example: Space Marine Predator costs roughly 0.5% of space marines average total resources. Eldar Predator costs about 0.4% of their total resources which is basically the same as SM but slightly cheaper since SM warriors have more strength in their soldiers versus Eldar who have strength in their vehicles. The in game explanation for this price fluctuation could be extra/less reinforcements bringing armor/vehicles to the planet from other planets.
It does make sense that if say one group has dominance on a planet, or greater numbers they would eat up more resources, thus incurring a penalty or as other posters said, a higher cost for things. While the other group would use less resources since there are less of them, all this seems to fit pretty well, while also making sense.
I posted this in another thread but realized that this might be a better place for it: I think having really massive outnumbering is unlikely for a couple reasons. We may be underestimating the popularity of novel gameplay. When a new faction comes out, people rush to it just to try it out, especially if it has a unique flavor that sets it apart from the others. It's possible players will have many accounts to fit the style of play they feel like experiencing on any given day SM may appeal to some people as a kind of lore based power fantasy to start (worst case, not generalizing), but after a while that will fade away into their concentration on winning and playing well, and they'll gravitate to whatever faction serves them the best. Alien/chaos factions will have unique, complex gameplay mechanics that may fit better to their playstyle, and after realizing that they can't just go stomping on everybody without effort many players will switch to a style that they prefer. The space marines are usually designed as a more rounded-out faction (at least in DoW and TT), a jack-of-all-trades, which means that they're easy to learn with but usually fragment later as players move into more extreme roles. Many players will stick with them, of course, but specialization has a lot of appeal. Lots of players are kind of masochists. They'll play a grossly outnumbered faction or overwhelming scenario just for the challenge of it, as long as the mechanics are such that they can still have a good time. If there's a huge underpopulation bonus on top of that it's just another carrot on the stick. Take a look at DoW for example. After the other races got released, space marines didn't continue to flood the field out of some kind of misplaced loyalty. Players picked whatever they thought they could win with, or that they had fun playing as.
t As a Tau loyalist i have never really found Eldar very appealing and if you didn't know numbers for tau will be low at start but i have seen to new players in DoW the Tau are very Appealing to many due to there Tech. and Battlesuits. adding to that Tau have highly advanced weapons and armor compared to all the other races ( with exception to necrons who are the most advanced )
To balance the population we have alliances and tyranids. With the tyranids, you have a greater preassure in any unbalanced faction, and with alliances, those small factions will stick together and kick asses as more popular factions. No matter how popular a faction is, it won't have more population than 2 other factions together, so that the catch.
In all the games I've played with Faction imbalancement. When one faction severely outnumbers another the maximum force dominates no matter what. Whether it be damage/health boosts. Once the superior numbers rally together and just slaughter few powered players through zerging. Once the Intial force of the few is crushed then its merely spawn camping/ keeping them split and on the defensive and never being able to hold ground or critical locations. The only way I could see it working some what would be giving The War council of the minority, some type of advantage, orbital strikes with low CDs, some way to sabotage the main forces abilities or tactical control. Giving a low amount of tickets to the majority(think battlefield ticket system for conquest). I don't see respawn delays doing too much to have an impact. Unless the faction sizes are close to balanced(which defeats the purpose of this topic) I don't see this making a huge impact. I see the only way this game being competitive is basically Space Marines vs CSM/Ork/Eldar alliance. Which defeats the purpose of 4 faction warfare(this of course is speculation).
