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Let's talk about Villager Trading! - Librarian, Wondering Trader

The latest snapshot/preview includes experimental changes to the wandering trader and librarian trades, which we're introducing to rebalance the villager trade system. Here's a look at what's changed: 

Librarian

Before these changes, players could get any village enchantment from any librarian. A novice librarian could sell the best enchantment in the game! For some players, this felt too random and made trading feel overpowered when compared to using the enchanting table or searching for enchanted books in structures.

With the new rules, librarians from different biomes sell different enchantments, and each village biome has one enchantment that is only sold by master librarians.

Players will have to work towards getting the best trades instead of relying on random chance. We hope this makes librarian trading more interesting and skilful, while also revealing some clues about their history of each village type through the enchantments that are sold there.
 
Wandering Trader

Some players felt that the Wandering Trader had unfair prices and didn't sell many useful items. We have lowered their prices, added more trades and increased the amounts available. The Wandering Trader will also now buy useful items from players, so it's possible to help them on their journey by giving them supplies even if you don't feel like buying anything.

As this is an experiment, we would really appreciate your feedback as work continues and to help us decide on the future direction for villager trades!

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  • 0
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    I don't like the villager changes for a number of reasons.

    First of which is that the special books don't even go up to the max level possible for those books. For example you could only get Fortune 2 from Taiga villagers BUT max possible is Fortune 3. Which leads to players combining two Fortune 2 books to get a Fortune 3 book, which increases the cost required for enchanting your tools. And already players are having trouble getting full enchanted gear because of the "Too Expensive!" in the anvil interface.

    Secondly, this reduces significantly what players with world borders can do. Now if the world border cuts off the Jungle, oh well, that sucks. No Unbreaking trade for them! This is also true for anybody playing in a single biome world, or superflat generally. Because now they can't get any other biome.

    Thirdly, working with villagers was already a tedious process. To get them where you need them to go, to get the correct trades, and to get good prices. This was high reward for large amounts of work. This adds unnecessary strain onto Librarians specifically.

     

    Wandering Trader changes? Love them!

  • 0
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    this is not… a good change for new players it’s harder for old players it’s and i mean VERY VERY tedious especially since moving villagers is already a pain and biome locking in general could force players to travel hundreds of blocks for one trade with surprisingly is nit fun in the slightest this definitely need to either be reverted or changed heavily OR actually give a proper and more efficient way to move villagers

  • 0
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    I detest this change requiring traveling to get all the villager trades. Exploring is my least favorite thing to do in survival Minecraft. I like to build my base and stay there. I want to have my trading villagers in one place or, at least, at my base. This change, as well as the trims and archeology system, are forcing an exploratory style of play which I, for one, do not enjoy. Rather than allowing players, like me, to focus on a single base, now they are being forced to build all over the place. Again, this forces a specific style of play.

    Closely followed by exploring in my list of "unenjoyable Minecraft things" is grinding for diamonds to get tools and armor. It gets in the way of all the building fun.

    Even the "best" versions of efficiency, unbreaking, and silk touch available via trade are weak.

    All this changes does is increase the grind with little actual benefit.

    Putting the higher level enchantments behind greater librarian levels makes some sense but it's still a useless grind.

    I'm comfortable reducing the cost benefits of zombie curing.

  • 589
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    Not a great change for villager trades. I understand what you are trying to do, but this makes the game less fun to play. That is something I personally do NOT want. 

  • 1
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    I dislike the change to librarians. My main issue is the biome-locked trades + nerfed trade pools.

    Villagers are overpowered, but the cost of making a "trading hall" is extremely high in time, emeralds, potions, gapples, & setups for zombifying + curing. If you're making a new village, add minecart systems for transport to that cost. Villagers are notoriously a nightmare to work with, especially to transport. If you can put in the significant cost to make one, it pays tenfold. Other ways of getting enchants have a lower cost, but also lower returns.

    But now, the trades I seek out villagers for are locked to specific biomes. The costs above were for trading in one village. Now multiply that by 7, if you want every trade; two will require villager transport. Add on constant travel time, since you can't put them all at your base anymore to justify the cost + headache compared to enchant tables by making their use convenient for future you.

    Oh, and the trade pools have been nerfed too. You can't even buy Protection IV books anymore. Enchanting tables are now objectively better than Plains villages.

    These changes make working with librarians no longer worth it in my opinion. Before it was already notoriously costly. Now it's even worse. This will cause me to avoid using librarian villagers outright, instead of encouraging trading with them. If you're not going to make working with villagers significantly easier in the same breath, please don't make this change.

  • 1
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    I love it. Rerolling for mending always felt like cheating. This is a healthy change for the game, even if it's currently unpopular. It's like ripping off a band aid. It needs to happen.

  • 56
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    This is wonderful! I can finally say that I'm proud of you again

  • 506
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    Keep villager trades the way they are, biome specific trades is a pretty bad idea given the fact that you might have to travel thousands of blocks to just get your mending trade. Not ideal.

  • 1
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    "Biome-specific trades" is a really thoughtful change that would seem fitting effort wise for what you should get and I would encourage further implementing the concept

    However, You should only need to explore a certain area once to be able to renewably obtain the items provided from that biome or structure.

    You should make it possible again to obtain level V enchantments via trading... and make non-renewable enchantments available via trading (if at least only in level I or II of those enchantments)

    While encouraging Exploration is great gameplay wise... many people with long-term worlds are constantly cautious not to increase the storage size of their worlds as they tend to be laggier and more unplayable at larger sizes... Specially bedrock players who have lesser accessibility to tools that would help them reduce the capacity of their worlds

  • 1
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    I think if the biome-based system for villagers stays implemented, biome maps should be added for each of the biomes with a villager type. Players can often spend hours looking for a specific biome, and if they don't want to check their seed, there isn't a way to search efficiently. Alternatively, the maps could lead to specific types of villages, such as desert villages, snow villages, etc. These maps could be placed within village chests, so that villages can lead to each other and the exploration can happen naturally. If this was implemented, I'd also like to see some of the lag that comes from explorer maps improved. 1.19.3 attempted to fix this, but it's still quite noticable, and the mod Async Locator does a great job at handling this if you're looking for a way to improve it further.

  • 0
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    While I agree that villager trading can be OP, I don't think that locking specific books behind different biome themed villagers is a good idea. They are already a pain in the butt to move around. Now we would have to drag them to even more places, causing more lag because there will be more villagers everywhere.

    I am fine with only being able to cure them once for the discount, but I think if you want to dial back the power of villagers, you just make it so that at the master level, you are guaranteed a random enchanted book at its highest level. This way players need to spend time trading with the villager instead of re-rolling the trades to get mending or prot 4 as the first trade

  • 0
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    Building a villager trading hall is already a substantial time investment. Making this process more difficult and tedious by having to build 7 different trading halls and then consolidating the villagers you get from them does not provide additional interesting gameplay. Transporting villagers is already a pain.

    Additionally, aside from villager wrangling, having to find the 7 different biomes can also take several hours of searching, which can be very boring, as there is no survival mechanic which can help direct you to a specific biome.

    Removing the stacking discount from curing villagers is probably okay, even though its removal doesn't seem necessary in a sandbox game.

  • 1
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    For those who don't know, the books they removed from the villager trading options were the crossbow, trident, and fishing rod enchants.

    I understand the crossbow and trident enchants being removed, but why are the fishing enchants removed but the curses get to stay? There are literally fishing houses in villages, it definitely fits in with the lore there. I feel like some players definitely want to have access to the curse enchants to troll, so it could be good to keep it in somehow. But it just makes the Savanna and Swamp villagers worse since they can offer a bad trade like that (although swamp is great for accessing mending).

  • 1
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    I'm not sure about all these changes...

    The change of wandering trader is good to me.

    Relying on luck is not a good solution for me.

    The way all the changes apply to librarians is not good to me. Lets me explain.

    I agree that novice Librarian selling Max enchantment is overpower, but a change to the mechanic of the librarian can fix the issue. A librarian can only sell one enchantment. Then with every level of mastery the librarian gets, the max level of enchantment level up. So novices can only get level one enchantment and master the max level of the enchantment. 

    For the enchantment with only one level (infinity, mending, silk touch, etc.) it could be relative to existing biome. This would help the tales. For me the other enchantment who aren't relative to a biome, they aren't relative to tales.

    The biome exclusivity is a good idea, but with two villages not spawning, it's not fair or easy for the novice/young players. Finding and visiting 5 villages are correct to me. Caring villagers hundreds of blocks away and building a new village is bad for the novice/young players.

    With all the changes proposed, the grind will increase and this increase will discourage new players.

  • 0
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    This change feels like an actual buff to exploration, BUT:

    1. It doesn't feel random at all - 2nd enchanted book trade (the one unlocked before master, but not instantly) should have at least 5-8% chance for an enchant from outside biome pool (helps superflat, adds randomness and can actually make the game more exciting)
    2. Having only 1 biome for every enchant might make some enchants very inaccessible - maybe some enchants could be shared across 2 or 3 biomes?
    3. Master enchants being level 2 (unbreaking...) and level 3 (efficiency, sharpness) just adds unnecessary chores - who would like to combine enchants all the time?

    Otherwise I love the new approach that actually makes exploration exciting and rewarding!

  • 0
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    There are two issues I see with this.

    No one wants sharpness 3, unbreaking 2, or efficiency 3. They want the max level trades. This is currently impossible to get, and with the bad system for combining books with an anvil, you would make it very expensive or impossible (repair limit) to add some enchantments to your tools. The anvil mechanic system is already confusing enough.

    Additionally, this change is meant to reduce randomness, but the enchant price is still random. This means players have to tediously reset a master level trader for a better price. If you make it consistent or more consistent, this will discourage the tedious resetting players do for better trade prices. If you do make it consistent, please make it reasonably priced though. No need to further the gap between knowledgeable and casual players.

  • 0
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    Really do not care for the librarian changes. I honestly don't think I would mind these changes as much if they came hand in hand with a heavy update to the enchanment table, but this seems like just another nerf to artificially extend gameplay. Going to over half a dozen villages scattered across over thousands of blocks of your world to get specific enchantments doesn't sound 'more interesting and skillful' it sounds straight up tedious and annoying. 

  • 224
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    I hope you also plan on adding easier ways to get the jungle or swamp villagers. Currently this makes it difficult or confusing for casual players to get better enchants like mending and more tedious for experienced players to get mending.

  • 357
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    This is just going to add way too much grind to the game.  It would be enough to make me stop playing entirely!  

  • 0
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    I honestly dont like this new villager trading system for the librarians but i do for the wandering traders. Also please dont change the discounts for villager curing! if someone can gather all of those resources in order to cure and infect them over and over then they should be rewarded since its kinda hard to get all of the resources to do it!

  • 0
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    honestly leave it as is, personally I play minecraft for a creative outlet, whether it's a cool build, farm, mini game or ride or just general art. I get people will just say then play in creative, but I prefer survival and the feeling of accomplishment that comes with it when I have finished a project.
    this change will NOT make the game harder, but more tedious and grinds. there's a difference the same with the changes to the netherite upgrade and trims. adding the trims to structures and having us go look for them was great but after you find the first one it's just more grinding in a 1x2 or what ever your preferred method is. Again this trader change doesn't make the game harder just more tedious and more time transporting mobs. this has been a core feature in the game for so long now it should be marked as intended, just like nether roof building and tnt duping on java, or please explain how this is more cheaty/broke than either of those ? plus there is alot more effort put into fully cured trader halls than both mentioned above.

    all this is gona do is have people quit or go looking at seed videos for the perfect seed.
    I'm all for making the game harder ( for those who want it) but please Mojang stop with the tedious grindy stuff. For us average Joe's that have limited time we don't want to spend what limited time we have transporting mobs from one side of the world to the other just to get a trading hall that doesn't even have all or maxed out trades

  • 0
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    This is honestly the worst change I've seen so far.

    As much as I think villagers are broken, I don't think you should be punishing people that wanna reach endgame, maybe make a NEW set of enchantments specific to some biomes but do not change everything players have been working for the last few years

    Also, I would be okay with this update if Master villagers at least gave max enchanted books instead of... level III books ?

    I would also be okay with this change if the "too expensive" limit was removed, it serves little to no purpose and already makes the enchanting system tedious to just get a pair of boots with all possible enchantments on it, removing max books from the librarian loot table doesn't sound fair for that kind of scenario, I do not wanna build with a pickaxe that takes ages to mine deepslate for example.

    Everything concerning the wandering traders is very nice though.

  • 0
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    Finally some balancing! Love this direction. I do think Mending should only be available as loot or be heavily priced - diamond exchange, and please get rid of Diamond Gear and Tools trading too - thus making Diamonds actually worth something again.

  • 55
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    How does this affect players new to Minecraft?

  • 247
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    This will only push players into using ChuckBase more.

  • 13
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    Is there still a way to get mending without a swamp villager?

  • 1
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    Villagers do need to be rebalanced but this is not the way to do it. Having different biomes for each high value enchantment is extremely tedious, especially for Mending and Unbreaking. You need to first find the biome which can be thousands of blocks away, then you need to try to get villagers in that biome either through tedious villager transportation, or by curing a zombie villager which is based on chance. Now that you have a villager, you either need to head to the biome each time for trades or actually take that villager back to your other villagers which can be potentially dangerous.

    Not having maxed out enchantments from Master trade is also bad, as the Anvil Work Limit is more likely to stop you from getting maxed gear. With the current system, the enchanting table is not reliable which is why villagers are so sought after. The whole process is extremely grindy already and is now worse, making it unfriendly for casual players and more annoying for veterans.

    Also removing Trident enchantments makes getting a good Trident extremely grindy. Getting a Trident already was hard, now trying to get the right enchantments for Loyalty and Riptide will take an eternity. Again, the enchantment table is unreliable, you end up burning lots of levels. If these books were obtainable through other means like an extremely likely chance in Shipwrecks or Ocean Ruins. Either scale back the villager nerf, buff the enchanting table, or add more ways to get enchantments.

  • 0
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    Using the enchanting table will only make it worse; trying to get sharpness & Unbreaking, only getting Smite and fire

  • 77
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    This is definitely a move in the right direction. Previously, trading with Villagers was too OP. And this change fixes it.

    But still... Perhaps along with this... It is worth adding some alternative ways to get enchantments specific to one of the groups of players. Possibly with small chances... or with difficult content.

    So that the players have a choice. How can he get this enchantment.

  • 104
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    i do not mind this change personally, but i believe there needs to be more methods to find specific biomes if you do go ahead with this, i like that we have to build villages in biomes that we wouldn’t have our base in as it gives a new outlet to be creative, but finding these biomes can be a pain sometimes, so maybe expand the cartographers map selection to include witch huts, desert temples and jungle temples