Is it ? Or is it the poor design of herbalism ?
To give one example of an absolutely basic alternate mechanic :
What if when one person farms a herb":
- this herb is gone instantly
- the character who snatched it gets a 8 second debuff that prevents him from clicking another herb within those 8 seconds.
- another herb instantly spawns , somewhere within a 20yd radius around the herb that’s now gone.
Problem solved. And the problem that the vanilla-system had, where 2 ppl would arrive at a herb at the same time, and only one would get it, and the other would be sad. That problem is largely gone too, because player 1 gets the herb, and player 2, who was a bit slower, immediately see another herb spawn next to him, which player 1 cannot click (since he has the 8sec debuff).
And now when a train of 50 multiboxed druids arrive, they have to click 50 herbs, instead of 1 herb 50x. And if you happen to arrive in the same area as where the 50 druids are stacked up, you have just as much chance as the multiboxer of getting the next herb.