[Suggestion] Gear that affects drop rates.

An option for combat classes to focus on their gathering (leather, web, fleece etc) would go a long way.

Even it it's just jewelry, items with stats that increase drop-rates would be excellent. As an example, +5% NQ drop rate, or +2% HW drop rate.

To balance it out and keep it interesting, these increases could have combat stat penalities alongside them. So increasing drop-rate might have a corresponding decrease in DET or VIT, and increasing HQ rate lowers your Skill/Spell Speed by a scaled percentage.

That way, focusing on gathering drops at certain levels isn't completely trivial. You'd have to level past the mobs you are targeting in order to effectively boost your gathering. This does away with the need for a "hunter" class to some extent.

Even if my choice of mechanics for the example doesn't quite work out, I think there's something to the idea of allowing people to gear for drops. It also gives combat-oriented players an easier entry point to the economy.

Although this would definitely decrease the amount of time I personally spend farming, it also increases the efficiency of bots which would even be more detrimental to the economy.

Keeping bots under a certain number will keep the economy somewhat stable but if we do things like these, the number of bots would not have to be as numerous and they could still farm efficiently. Meaning, SE would have to double the efforts in removing bots, otherwise, all the stuff you just farmed would be worth nothing because the bots have already destroyed your market.

In order to implement something like this you would have to find ways to not allow bots to be able to benefit from them. You also have to keep in mind that, we can not truly wipe out every last bot. There will always be, some amount of bots.

Excellent point.