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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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  • 60
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    i dont think i like this too much, can this be a setting that can be togglable

  • 19
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    This won't be a popular change... but it's a needed change. Thanks for balancing the game and increasing the reward of getting geared up. If you can do it in one play session (which I have before this experimental snapshot), its too easy, and this is a good change.

  • 1
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    i think this change is pretty good for one reason. you don’t sit there waiting 30 minutes for 1 book. instead you can go to a certain biome to get a certain book. one problem tho is the jungle and swamp biome. i think to anyone it can be confusing on how to make your own village or may be too much of a hassle. i think if they added jungle and swamp villages this can be the best change there is to villagers

  • 25
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    A change that could make this more enjoyable would be increasing the spawn rate of zombie villagers, to give players another way to start villages of their own in the mix of biomes. Moving villagers around over long distances is quite tedious. A buff to collecting "wild" zombie villagers would give players more options about how they want to get their villager settlements up and running. Maybe 1 in 10 zombies could be a zombie villager?

  • 0
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    No, no, no. Not all of us play as a streamer for hours or "professionals" or on servers with multiple people who could spread out to different biomes. When I hear talk about something being "OP" its usually by those who are able to play for hours a day, even as their only job, or on a server with top tier players.  I play for an hour or two a night and though I want challenges, I also want to unwind, and enjoy it. The ability to get books from any librarian (with some flipping work) that make the game just easier enough for me to get the three that make my playing enjoyable, and not a grind is part of what brought me back to Minecraft after years away. 

    So the idea of first locating a biome, building a village, moving villagers to their, then getting the leather and paper to trade along with emeralds from other villagers so I need to also get that...nope, I'll just skip playing altogether. That sort of grind doesn't sound like fun to me. For me, "flipping" a villager to get a specific trade (usually mending, fortune, or power) can take over a half hour, occasionally an hour is enough of a grind. It is difficult to find jungle and mangrove biomes in many seeds, even for me to get bamboo to start growing bamboo. 

    I like the Wandering Trader changes. But if the changes are made to the librarians, I'll be back to playing rarely if at all when I have significant hours to dedicate to them. 

  • 0
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    Honestly Mojang. You did a good jobs.
    Sike. Wtf Mojang you know you guys made "HARDCORE MODE". How are they gonna kill the dragon if they can't even have villager with everything you need. They use elytra to find 7,8 villagers. We don't like how you changed wandering traders, trade still. Diamond generation is a great change but you're gonna nerf it again. Villager trading should be as it is. Who wanted villager trade nerf? 5 years old philza hater? Or a creative cheater? You guys must be faking the part "From peoples Feedback". You guys are gonna lose 50% percent of the player. I can bet. And why you guys wanna nerf thing that is already great. Diamond generation should be rare as it gives happiness when found. You should only change Ancient debris generate with some buff since it is already hard to find and you need Smithing templates to upgrade so that feels better

  • 0
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    I feel that making certain book trades locked to certain biomes doesn't add much real challenge, it just adds frustration and makes it more of a time investment. Moving villagers isn't really *hard*, it's just time consuming, and I fear this system of spreading out villager trades across the world doesn't provide a rewarding challenge, rather, it takes what was an already frustrating process and adds another element that wastes your time and could go wrong.

  • 0
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    NONO NO NO PLEASE NO 

    I best i would compromise is having a setting for this feature to turn it on or off

    Villagers have been like this and it is basically how a forth of the community plays the game i have play for over 10 years i know a bad change when i see one 

  • 1
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    I understand the approach for you guys wanting to change villager trading and balance the late game of Minecraft, and I appreciate it. That said, I would much rather villager trading stay the way it is. If it were to be changed I do not think certain things, like stackable curing of villagers, should become unobtainable/impossible after an update. Part of the fun of late-game Minecraft is "breaking" the game.

    I think making it toggable/not enabled by default for server owners would be a fantastic fix supported by everyone.

  • 0
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    I like the wandering trader ideas and the removal of cross bow, trident, and fishing enchants but I loathe the idea of limiting mending, fortune, etc to certain biomes. Depending on world generation, you may have to travel thousands of blocks to find the right biomes and then make dangerous nether tunnels to connect your trading posts in each biome. All without having great gear! You either go into the ender dragon fight under-powered and get an elytra and THEN farm the enchants, or you take many, many hours getting the enchants that unlock the mid to late game content. So grindy and very hard on new players!

  • 0
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    As a game developer myself I think you've hit the nail on the head in terms of balancing librarians and encouraging exploration at the same time is a nice bonus. I know of the stigma that comes with transporting Villagers is pretty bad but making it more challenging is only going to make it more fun and rewarding for those who do end up doing it. This is a good change I don't know how to improve it other than to crush bugs in entity transportation. Minecarts, Furnace Minecarts, Boats, etc.

  • 0
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    Reg. Villager Trades ..
    Not interested at all in the change (nerf) to the Biome reqs for the Librarian Trades. That would be a big 'NO' for me. Not wanting to have to go around to multiple biomes to re-outfit myself for the 30th time dying in the nether.  But, I'm all for you guys adding in more game generated villages. Ex: swamp, jungle and cherry blossom Villages! 

    That being said, yes, the Librarians and Villages in general do need an rebalancing.   Soo ..

    Yes, to the nerf on Zombie-fying the Villager 20x to get the 1 emerald trade. Honestly, I never even bother to do this & just accept their Trades at face value.  And, even HermitCraft would survive if they could only Zombie-fy the Villager 1x or 2x max. 

    Yes, to the limit to how many different types of books can be acquired from the Librarians. 

    • Honestly, you could take out the Helm enchants as well. 
    • Would prefer a few more Max level Books at Master Level than the II or IIIs  ..
    • And/or maybe make a Grandmaster level that requires a LOT more EXP to get to than Master?  Diamond w/Emerald outline belt?  To get the IV and Vs?  

    Wandering Traders ..
    Yeah, they suck as is.  I always add in VanillaTweaks HC & Miniblocks just to give meaning to them.

    • YES to selling things to them for Emeralds (Honey stuff, too?)
    • YES to the reduced prices for common stuff.
    • YES to letting them have the ability to sell EVERYTHING in game for a corresponding higher price /RNG/Rarity
      • Shulker boxes = 128 BLOCKS Emeralds
      • Beacons = 256 BLOCKS Emeralds

     

     

     






  • 81
    Registered User commented
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    I personally don't like this kind of villager trading. I need to spend more time looking for various biomes, which is not friendly to the casual experience.

  • 114
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    "We hope this makes librarian trading more interesting and skilful,"

     

    IT WILL NOT. Any experienced minecraft player who can build a trading hall with the best enchantments sold by librarians can also go around to every biome and find a village and buy the books. The only difference is how much more tedious this is. It won't require more skill, and it wont be interesting, it will just be more boring and upset more advanced survival players

  • 0
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    I believe myself and many others highly disagree with the changes made to librarians, in my friends and i's experiences we usually either cure zombie villagers or bring them in from nearby villages, and will usually turn them to a librarian and start the lengthy and tedious process of refreshing what they sell until mending shows up.

    Mending to not only my peers and I but the entire community is a very important enchantment that I'll go as far as saying is crucial to Minecraft's game progression. and to have it require wondering for what could be hours to find a swamp villager (which may i remind, don't even have villages to begin with) and either setting up a long drawn out path just to get one book, or spending even longer trying to bring the villager back to your group's town with no real official system for moving them, on top of the already time consuming system to get the trade you want is ridiculous.

    If the problem is mending or any other enchantment being received so readily available why not make something that lets getting specific enchantments rewarding but not so needlessly drawn out? after all time spent doesn't necessarily make the experience more fulfilling, maybe a bunch of little items you have to enchant (like papers) that you then combine into a specific enchantment of your choosing? or to bring it specifically back to librarians, might i suggest a new, slightly rarer currency villagers use for high value trades and tie that in with most book trades?

  • 16
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    while i find this interesting i prefer to abuse my villagers instead of my siblings

  • 0
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    I personally feel that these changes will have a major negative impact on a good portion of the player base, as this really only supports those who like exploring for thousands of blocks. For those who enjoy settling in a specific location, and building out from there, it is a major disadvantage, making that style of play all but obsolete. I do think as well that having Efficiency be 2 levels below it's max, while all other enchantments seem to be one below it's max, is a bit unfair. I'm impartial to the idea of lowering the max level that you can get as long as this also comes with the removal of repairing and Enchanting through Anvils. This will essentially remove getting a Good set of Boots or a decent Helmet. I'd rather spend 70 levels getting Feather Falling and Depth Strider on my boots than having to choose between the two. This change to the Librarian only helps players who don't like putting too much time into one location, and harms players who like building up one area, and those who have limited time to play. I've had worlds where the closest desert to my spawn was 18k away, through the nether. I had to use a mapping website to find it. Not only is the physical distance tedious, but the, in my opinion, tougher RNG that is shown by the Enchanting table is even worse. I feel like this change was designed with the idea of Hardcore players, who don't need to get items multiple times, and newer players, who don't settle down, in mind. Ignoring SMP communities entirely.

  • 0
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    I love these villager changes, but they should not force everyone to go above and beyond. It expects a lot more EXP grinding and biome hunting out of the average player than necessary. I would like this a lot more if it scaled by what difficulty you were playing on. I'd love to do a hard/hardcore world with these changes for the added challenge, but when in a server with my friends of varying levels of dedication/knowledge on MC this would prove to be inconveniencing, trader halls would take much longer to set up, and it'd take no time for the 5 of us to exhaust all local resources during the wait.

  • 0
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    Great opportunity to rebalance the diamond armor trades from armorer villagers in a similar manner, leaving these to master level trades only and one piece per villager, separating the type of armor depending on the biome, leaving the chestplate and leggings for jungle and swamp villagers respectively, as these are the more expensive pieces, and leaving helmets and boots for the other 5 biome types.

  • 0
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    While I think this is a step in the right direction, I feel that this would be way too tedious for players of all skill levels. It simply is too much work for beginners and experienced players, especially when trying to get jungle and swamp villagers which don't even spawn naturally. I feel like they absolutely should be naturally generating structures to help new players understand the system better instead of making them look it up online.

    The main issue I have with this system is that master librarians don't give you max level enchantments, meaning you will have to combine several books to get the enchants you want and risk getting the "Too Expensive" warning. If you're not going to give us the highest book level, then at least get rid of the XP cap in the anvil and just let us enchant with absurd XP amounts if needed, or just lower the cost of combining items in the anvil slightly. Make enchanting a more viable option than villager trading. This would balance out the system well while making it feel fair on the player.

  • 0
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    The changes really don't feel good. They are a straight up nerf of villagers, and don't do anything to make villager trading more compelling. Generally from my experience in gaming nerfs always go over bad. Villager trading is already not fun or compelling. Now I'm going to have to move villagers around my world to unlock all the enchanted books. Movie villagers is a terrible experience. Getting those high level books will also involve murdering more villagers because no one wants to keep around worthless villagers and this will lead to more of them. I don't play Minecraft to grind. In the little time I have to game I just want to have fun.

  • 0
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    Locking the max level of trades to a level underneath the maximum makes them essentially useless in most cases (with the exception of tools that you cannot enchant in an enchanting table). This goes especially for sharpness and efficiency, as you'd need FOUR books to get to level 5, which means you would not be able to fully enchant a sword (bc the it's "too expensive", which btw is silly for a game where you can get infinity levels. Let me decide what's too expensive maybe?) and you'd need to be very smart about it on a pickaxe to still be able to get all enchantments. As you can get higher levels of these from an enchanting table (+bonus enchantments that are biome exclusives for the villagers, even), you'd only ever need to engage with this extensive game of tiredly boating a villager several hundreds of blocks to make a baby for mending. There'd be no point for the other ones, it just would not be worth the reward unless you really feel the need to enchant some shears (which i have done, sure, but for most use cases a hoe works too - and that one can be enchanted on an enchanting table).

    TLDR; Unless you're planning on seriously reworking the anvil repair/enchanting system ("too expensive") this change makes librarians essentially useless in all biomes except swamps. If you can't get max enchantments from a villager there's no point in engaging with this new gameplay mechanic as it isn't rewarding/ actively worse than using an enchanting table.

  • 0
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    This change as planned would be very demotivating. I do not desire more "grindy" mechanics without equivalent balanced changes elsewhere. 

  • 1
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    I think this is one of the worst changes Mojang could've added for villagers. I feel as if they are going to do this at least make villagers easier to work with and move around and way more cooperative. Not only are they hard to work with now we have to travel thousands of blocks to different biomes to spend hours in hopes we get the trade because we have to max out the villager as well.

  • 0
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    Nice time to make obtaining mending similar to swift sneak and soul speed, as it is way too OP to have it so easily farmable. I suggest adding enchanted books with mending to end cities, to give players a bigger sense of achievement when finding it.

  • 79
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    So basically, more grind.
    Nah

  • 0
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    I feel this change is leaving us ground level players in the dust, we have little time on our hands and dont want to spend that time struggling with villagers. Villagers are already annoying to deal with and this change will just make things worse. This change seems specially designed for the super grindy players like those on the Hermitcraft server and is in no way meant for the community as a whole, not a good change if you ask me.

    If you're goal is to make the end-game more rewarding how about instead of making what we already have harder, you actually add a higher goal to reach. Making the current end-game harder for a more "rewarding" feel is something other games have tried and no one liked.

  • 0
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    I like the concept, but I think it's a little poorly executed. With stacking raid farms a thing, I rarely care to discount villagers anyway. After all, only a few hours of playing can get me more emeralds than I can spend.

    1) I like the *idea* of only allowing curing to affect them once. I like that they made it permanent, but they should add more ways to permanently lower it as well. Like: saving them in a raid (not hero of the village, but a small permanent discount if they were part of the raided "village"); gifting items to villagers (like dropping items that are specific to the villagers' job to gain favor); repairing iron golems in their presence; etc. Just some things to encourage and motivate doing other parts of gameplay that are new or rarely done.

    2) I like the *idea* of biome specific enchantments, but they restricted it too much imo. I think a good level would be to ONLY have the master level book be buome specific, and to have the biome specific trades just be max level versions of what you can normally only get lower level of. Like: unbreaking; efficiency; 4 types of protection; smite; sharpness; etc. Make it so that normal trades can only get up to level 2 (for max 3 books) or 3 (for max 5 books). Then, make biome specific master trades be the max levels of these books ( level 3 or 5).

  • 1
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    I posted another comment a while ago but I ran out of room so my last suggestion is to make enchanting with anvil as cheaper and remove the “Too expensive!” Message because it makes using enchanted books a pain to do.

  • 1
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    Mending is just overpowered in general. I think the best way to nerf it would be to make Mending books exclusive to Wondering Traders with a 25%-50% chance to appear. This would make players more excited when encountering a WT and makes Mending Feel more Late Game/End Game. It also makes Mending so much more valuable. I'm sure other players would disagree with this change idea but once I have Mending there is little to no incentive for me to mine for diamonds or other resources needed to enchant.