Path to a leaner economy and a healthier game

Gems need to be removed from the economy. Specifically non-quality gems. Non-quality gems are, in the most literal way, the resource players use to begin building wealth and to participate in the economy. Intelligent use of this resource will allow you to take advantage of the scarcity that exists in the game both by killing enemies quicker and acquiring more loot and by allowing you to effectively get by with less.

For this very reason it's vital that skill gems themselves are not subject to such scarcity. A non-quality skill gem should not have any market-value at all beyond casual trades between friends and guildies. Non-quality skill gems should be abundantly available and should be the first thing players look at when they wonder how they're going to acquire the means to buy a specific peace of high-end gear. There should not be a single skill or support gem in the game that can not be easily acquired, without any real cost, by a poor person with a plan to get rich (or die trying).

In addition easier access to gems would inspire exactly the sort of market behavior we desire. A defining quality of high-end gear is links and sockets. Things prized much higher by those with an abundance of gems than those who are already short. Easier access to gems I believe would cause an increase in demand for items with good links and sockets, high-quality gear whose trade would be the singular focus of what I believe to be a healthier economy.

On the subject of skill gems I offer three potential solutions:
1. A new vendor recipe. 3 skill gems of the same color can be traded for a single random level 1 skill gem of the same color whose minimum required level is equal or below the lowest minimum required level of all gems offered. For example, you have a plan for a build that needs Reduced Mana. Except your class isn't getting that support, ever. You could level 3 Heavy Strike gems to level 9 and have a single chance at being able to vendor these for that support. You could level 4 Heavy Strike gems to level 9 and have 4 chances. Level 5 Heavy Strikes and you can vendor them in 10 combinations etc.
2. A new vendor. After beating Dominus for that difficulty Lady Dialla, the Gemling Queen, becomes available as a vendor selling skill gems and supports. She will have a small selection of level 1 gems available each level, never of quality, that can be purchased for an Orb of Chance. At normal difficulty she'll only ever have gems with a minimum level requirement of 10. At cruel she'll have gems up to and including level 24 and in Merciless she will potentially offer every single gem.
3. Extended Quest Rewards. Normal difficulty rewards stay exactly the same. At cruel difficulty every class can also pick from the rewards of adjacent classes, meaning the Marauder also gets his pick from Templar and Duelist gems. The Scion would gain a balanced subset of every single class. At merciless difficulty every class can pick every single gem given to any class as a reward for that particular quest. Rangers could pick from Templar rewards and Witches could pick gems normally offered to Marauders.

The point of these changes is to effectively remove non-quality gems from the greater market, both to slim down the economy as to facilitate easier participation in the economy by removing roadblocks to making a fun farming build.

Maps should be removed from the economy.

There's a single quality that I believe that all challenging games possess. They give you the option to access content that's tougher than you can handle. This exists in Dark Souls where you have to option to not head to the Undead Burg but instead head straight for the Tomb of Giants. In XCOM: Enemy Unknown you can choose to start on Impossible Ironman difficulty right off the bat. Even Path of Exile has the option to, in normal, skip straight through areas and past side-areas to get access to content that's potentially much higher than your level. In later difficulties there's the option to do higher side-areas right away when you're several levels below or to wait and do them later.

This is good, this adds challenge and choice to the game. However PoE's mapping system goes the exact opposite direction. Instead of giving you access to content that you can't handle it denies you access to content that you can handle. This is bad, both from a gameplay perspective as from an economic perspective.

The lack of this access causes players to flood the market with low-quality items making trade chat, indexers and trade forums a mess full of items that are barely worth the effort of either selling or buying them to get the currency they need to keep on accessing content appropriate for their character. Directly working against what I believe would be a much healthier state of PoE's economy, a smaller luxury economy with a focus on high-end gear.

Instead what I believe would be a much better situation would be if the maps stockpiling in a player's stash were not the type too easy and boring to run but instead maps that are much too hard to run. Giving the player access to content harder than they can handle. In turn this would inspire exactly the market behavior we wish to see, providing a focus instead on the high-end gear required to run these maps as opposed to a constant stream of smaller amounts currency to keep rolling maps.

To achieve this I have two variants of essentially the same solution which, admittedly, is rather extreme. I would suggest a boost in map drop-rates sufficient to effectively destroy any market-value they may have had. With one of these possible simple cave-eats.
1. 66-70 maps would remain the same. 71-75 maps would gain an implicit mod of moderate difficulty, different and appropriate to the type of map. 75+ maps would get an implicit mod of high difficulty, again different and appropriate to the type of map. These implicit mods would give no bonus to the quantity of items dropped.
2. Maps 66-70 will continue to drop in all rarities as they do now. 71-75 maps will only drop as magic or rare, with a bias towards more dangerous mods. Maps 75+ will only drop as rares with a strong bias towards more dangerous mods. The quantity bonus of mods would likely have to be reduced somewhat.

The goal is to provide much easier access to higher maps but at the same time increase the probability that those maps will be harder, this to create an environment where players have continual access to content harder than they can handle. At the same time inspiring demand for high-end items needed to deal with those maps.

You're probably expecting an 'uniques need to be removed from the market'. Not quite. Instead how uniques drop needs to be diversified.

Right now we're in the awkward situation where uniques are losing a lot of glamour because the quantity bonuses present in maps, along with whatever rarity players have acquired by that time, causes many uniques to drop at the times players need them least. At the same time this means those uniques are often dumped on the market for prices barely worth the effort of the veterans selling them but still out of rich for new players, the sole audience likely to buy them. More market bloat that we need to get rid off.

Uniques in this game come in several flavors. We've got high-end extremely powerful uniques the likes of Kaom's Heart, Shavronne's Wrappings and Soultaker. We've got general purpose uniques the likes of Goldrim, The Searing Touch and Bright Beak. We've got build-enabling uniques like Facebreakers, Solaris Lorica and Voll's Protector. And we've got leveling uniques the likes of Crown of Thorns, Briskwrap and Ondar's Clasp. These should be split up in separate categories each with their own level and area related drop chances.

Right now, with all uniques being in essentially the same category I believe we're in an unhealthy position when it comes to the market for uniques. The high-end stuff is suitably high-priced and traded for, I'm not looking for changes there. But everything else is in a bad spot that benefits neither trades nor self-found players. Again, the sheer size of the market makes it a pain in the ass to find the items you need without an automated auction house (which would destroy the game in other aspects).

At the same time I believe the current system, which seems designed around the idea that dropping low-level uniques in the end-game will inspire rerolls, is countering itself. I do not believe that the vast majority of low level uniques dropped in maps inspire any thoughts of rerolling. Rerolling I believe is driven by two things. Firstly the idea of a new playstyle, for most builds this does not require any uniques and where it does this applies only to a very small selection of build-enabling uniques, general uniques dropping in the end-game serve no purpose in this. Secondly it's fond memories of the levelling process, uniques dropped in the end-game have no purpose at all in this, on the contrary it's uniques dropped during the levelling process that serve a role here. To inspire rerolls these low level uniques need to be attained during leveling, at a point where the player doesn't have the wealth to effectively participate in the economy. As such they need to drop.

On the matter of uniques I would suggest these changes:
1. High-end uniques should stay as they are. Extremely rare and primarily obtained through trade or the most difficult content. These are exactly the uniques we want to see present on the market. Should only drop in high-level content, mostly through maps with lower chances in high-level Merciless zones.
2. General purpose uniques are useful at most levels but will be replaced by stronger gear without too much difficulty. This category should be available at all levels and should be relatively common too find. These don't flood the market but they do not push it in the direction we wish either, as such I believe their drop chance should be significantly increased but with a heavy bias towards lower rolls. High rolled items will be rare and take the market more in the direction we want. Low rolled items will be more abundant and less likely to appear on the market.
3. Build-enabling uniques need to drop primarily mid-game. The end of cruel and the entirety of Merciless. This is the time where obsessive rerollers need them to start a new character. They should be rarer in maps and early-game. As with general purpose uniques I believe their drop chances should be increased noticeably but with again a strong bias towards lower rolls to enable a market for highly rolled items whilst providing lower rolled variants to inspire players to keep rerolling.
4. Levelling uniques, the type of unique that's only useful in early-game and serves little to no purpose in gearing beyond that need the most change. These uniques are the type that only inspire awe in new players still unfamiliar with the scope of PoE and are, at best, only decent to more experienced players. We don't want to see these on the market much at all but we do want them in the hands of newer players to inspire them to play on. Drop chances for these should be significantly increased in the early game, to the point early act bosses will drop one very often. On the other side they should be very rare mid-game, allowing variants with more sockets and links, and not drop at all in maps, ever.

The purpose here is to end up with less uniques on the market overall but those that are present should be in demand and highly contested. In addition it's to provide a richer levelling experience and easier rerolls giving more options and power to players to build wealth through playing the game.