IMO, if there is a seller willing to farm the items, and a buyer willing to buy them, let the two of them have at it.
But people who aren't willing to pay for the quest items won't be able to farm them because the area will be overpopulated.
Functionally, there is no difference between 100 people farming 10 of an item, and 1 person farming 1,000 of an item.
So, if we assume that the game developers put in enough of the encounter that drops the item so that all players wanting to do the quest had easy access to the mobs, then if the area is over populated by people farming the item, the item itself is being over farmed, meaning it will be selling far cheaper than one would expect it to sell for - which simply means it is a good buy for players.
On the other hand, if the developers didn't put enough of that mob in for players wanting to do the quest to have easy access to them, then the area would be over farmed whether the item was tradeable or not.
The consensus seems to be escort quests and I'd like to chime in too.
Escort quests, especially when:
a) They walk slightly too fast or too slow compared to your default movement speed.
b) When they help to attack an enemy in front of them and then run back to where they were before continuing to be escorted. Either make them not go past the point they have reached or don't make them join in the fighting at all.
Just like everyone else in this thread, I hate the stereotypical escort quest. Rarely has one not made me grind my teeth in frustration. I will say though, that the Witcher 3 made some escort quests bearable since the npcs moved at player speed and either stayed out of combat at a safe distance and/or only involved themselves if they were capable of not getting in the way or dying easily.
I like to think I can tolerate most quests if they have a good enough story/motivation behind them, though I don't like doing the same quest repeatedly unless it has fun enough gameplay involved that I would have done the requirements to complete the quest without the quest existing. That being said, I don't like tedious quests i.e. fetch quests in the style of "go collect x brown rocks for reasons" especially if it is repeated in increasing numbers.
I also get annoyed when quests send players in large travel loops which require a lot of leg work to artificially pad the time spent on the quest. Its devalues a player's time, and in some cases insults the player's intelligence, to have quests that play out like "Go to this cave in that far way area to slay a specific Direwolf Alpha, then come back for your reward", then next quest is "Go to kill 15 Direwolfs in the cave you just spent 10 minutes walking back from and then come back for the next stage of the quest". There are better ways to keep players playing than just keeping them walking and it can become stale and boring to go back and forth between the same few locations repeatedly. Not to mention that it is better to allow players to complete multiple quests in the same location at the same time than to make them do the quests 1 by 1. It is an easily avoidable practice unless there is a story reason to do multiple quests in the same area 1 at a time. In which case there should be a way to update the quest within the immediate area the quest chain takes place in. I would like to mention that I don't as much mind if a quest emphasizes player travel if it is to areas that are unexplored or less explored by the player and especially if there are things of interest along the way.
I see a lot of other people's posts in this thread have similar opinions. Basically, quests I don't like are repetitive, tedious, add hassle outside of a player's control, or the majority of the time spent on them are padded with boring/uneventful gameplay. I also prefer if the reward for a quest matches the time spent and difficulty of it, but that is a different topic.
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XenantayaMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Quests that just require you to talk to an NPC, then travel a huge distance then talk to another NPC, travel another huge distance to talk to another NPC, etc. You end up just wasting a huge amount of time travelling for no good reason.
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I got a flashback from WoW BC Shadowmoon Valley and the gold farmers from back in the day...
So, if we assume that the game developers put in enough of the encounter that drops the item so that all players wanting to do the quest had easy access to the mobs, then if the area is over populated by people farming the item, the item itself is being over farmed, meaning it will be selling far cheaper than one would expect it to sell for - which simply means it is a good buy for players.
On the other hand, if the developers didn't put enough of that mob in for players wanting to do the quest to have easy access to them, then the area would be over farmed whether the item was tradeable or not.
Escort quests, especially when:
a) They walk slightly too fast or too slow compared to your default movement speed.
b) When they help to attack an enemy in front of them and then run back to where they were before continuing to be escorted. Either make them not go past the point they have reached or don't make them join in the fighting at all.
I like to think I can tolerate most quests if they have a good enough story/motivation behind them, though I don't like doing the same quest repeatedly unless it has fun enough gameplay involved that I would have done the requirements to complete the quest without the quest existing. That being said, I don't like tedious quests i.e. fetch quests in the style of "go collect x brown rocks for reasons" especially if it is repeated in increasing numbers.
I also get annoyed when quests send players in large travel loops which require a lot of leg work to artificially pad the time spent on the quest. Its devalues a player's time, and in some cases insults the player's intelligence, to have quests that play out like "Go to this cave in that far way area to slay a specific Direwolf Alpha, then come back for your reward", then next quest is "Go to kill 15 Direwolfs in the cave you just spent 10 minutes walking back from and then come back for the next stage of the quest". There are better ways to keep players playing than just keeping them walking and it can become stale and boring to go back and forth between the same few locations repeatedly. Not to mention that it is better to allow players to complete multiple quests in the same location at the same time than to make them do the quests 1 by 1. It is an easily avoidable practice unless there is a story reason to do multiple quests in the same area 1 at a time. In which case there should be a way to update the quest within the immediate area the quest chain takes place in. I would like to mention that I don't as much mind if a quest emphasizes player travel if it is to areas that are unexplored or less explored by the player and especially if there are things of interest along the way.
I see a lot of other people's posts in this thread have similar opinions. Basically, quests I don't like are repetitive, tedious, add hassle outside of a player's control, or the majority of the time spent on them are padded with boring/uneventful gameplay. I also prefer if the reward for a quest matches the time spent and difficulty of it, but that is a different topic.