I noticed that there are a lot of posts in the forum discussing the problem of the imbalance of the number of people. And the devs did try to do things like exit-game penalties.
But IMHO, the root of all is from the not suitable game mode.
Caused by lack of persistent server games.
Once you have a persistent server game, you have a longer game cycle, and a larger number of players such as a 20v20 squad mode, then every player can join the game at any time for almost all time periods and enjoy it immediately to the content of the game itself.
You don’t have to worry too much about players leaving midway, because new players will join.
You also don’t have to worry about joining a doomed battle in the middle of the game, because the game flow is long enough that you can still make your own contribution to the team.
The numbers of both sides of the battle can always be in a dynamic and relative balance.
At the same time, you developers can also increase the online activity of your player base and stickiness to the game
It’s all just happening in some custom mode games even doesn’t have any grinding XP and it works fine.
Here are some awesome replays just happening in actuall games~