Find a way to cap DZ's to like 24 or 36 players. Bring skill back. Lock open world raids to whichever raid hits it first so if zerglords want to give someone else loot let them. Helps make people engage with less players sooner.
So, your first suggestion is to screw players who are not picked in the 1st 24 or 36 players for the raid? Your second suggestion calls for p1999 rules and enforcement, not likely.
They can set dz player caps at whatever level they want but that doesn't mean that it will require more skill for players to beat. As far as the open world part they have no way to prevent people not in a group/raid from damaging an NPC or helping out in a raid in anywauy.
EQ went through this at least once. Twice if you dig into some expansions. Vanguard also fell prey to this. Modifying raid content to a max number of players needs to be universal. In Vanguard, it began at 18 and was increased to 24. This only cause an issue doing older content and a few "mini" raids that had a 12 player limit. Annoying, but not really a big deal. EQ started at 72 (hence the raid UI size, immediately followed by a reduction to 54. This cause all sorts of issues with guilds. Not only did they slam right into a 72 player limit with PoTime.. when all other PoP events could host an unlimited number... but it was immediately dropped to 54 with GoD, requiring further culling. Several events have been sprinkled throughout and all received negative response.. sans one: SoD Hard Mode. Even still, SoD got some lash back, because the best gear came from those raids and you went from 54 to 36. Reducing the number of people isn't what is needed for anything.
They have access to the code to do it. Without modifying the engage mechanics, however, you'll end up with a bunch of griefers tagging raid mobs to lock other raids out. I should know. I tested and did it. I reported it, didn't get a ban.. but there were 3 really "unhappy" guilds as I kited said raid mob around for 4 hours to save it for our raid.
They have access to code to prevent other players from damaging, debuffing or otherwise interacting with an NPC that works in EQ? That code also prevents people from outside of the group/raid from healing/buffing people engaged in combat? If you are referring to behavior from another game that doesn't really count.
Just trying to think of ways to go the opposite route instead of this zerglord mentality. There has to be something out there....
Open world raid mobs have always been taken by whomever could raise a killing force faster, no problem here. Reducing the number of players allowed would shut out many players from being able to raid. That would not help game health in any way.
There is a way already to do this, make your own guild and only allow 24 or 36 players in, your wish has come true. As far as second idea, equally bad so one person can tag and kite the boss until guild gets there and nothing anyone else can do about it?
I really don't like the perspective that says "You can do that on your own" because such arguments were made against TLPs like 15 years ago when we had that battle here. However I think that argument is pretty applicable here. What people were asking for back then was a server that consolidated the whole population at a single expansion. This presented a collective action problem and therefore a server mechanic was necessary (and has been very successful). In this case, there's no need for a limit on toons in a raid. You can do it yourself. If folks use 72, it doesn't impact your game at all. In fact it can't impact your game because they've done that in their own DZ which you didn't have access to. If you want to show off your skills, do the raids with fewer people and enjoy not having to split loot with so many people. But other people should be able to play the game however they want.
Classic - PoP raids are 72, bring them down to 54. Then twink bosses to actually make them tough from classic - pop would be ideal.
In OW no, in DZ yes. I do not care what people do in open world, the game was designed to be zerged in open world up until PoP, b/c equipment was scarce originally. I'd almost prefer they make OW bosses like 10x hp to max zerging not worth the effort. And just have dz as the main way to raid. And adjust the DZ so they bosses are a challenge again.