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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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  • 99
    Registered User commented
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    How about NO.

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    I believe these changes will turn an already time-consuming process into an even more tedious endeavor. Forcing players to travel to different biomes to access their desired trades represents another hassle that will frustrate many players. Making the process of acquiring certain enchanted books excessively complicated will limit what construction and excavation projects they will be able to undertake, for example, subsequently stifling creativity.

     

    In addition, I feel that these changes to librarian trading will cause dying and losing one's items to become a severe punishment as players will be forced to spend a greater amount of time trying to make new tools, weapons and armor.

     

    Nevertheless, I do believe the changes to the Wandering Trader are positive. The fact that players will now be able to exchange useful items for emeralds is especially beneficial, as it will allow players who do not have many emeralds to interact with the Wandering Trader.

  • 0
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    I'm unsure if my 1486 character long post actually got posted or if it got deleted because this site is a mess, but in short, this change just feels unintuitive to literally every party.

    • New players likely wouldn't even know this change happened, they have no frame of reference for the enchantments librarians give.
    • Veteran players aren't going to experiment with every biome just to see what enchantment they have, this is just gonna become another thing you NEED to look up on the wiki.
    • People who like minmaxing villages will be annoyed, because arbitrarily it has just become impossible to have a village with everything available and you now need villages in different biomes just to get different items from one villager type.
    • People who think villages are overpowered will be annoyed because now villages have a way to guarantee getting certain enchantments

    Please, I encourage you, add more non-random ways to get enchantments, but NOT like this, not through villagers. Villagers already give way more benefits than any other mechanic in the game, they don't need more.

  • 0
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    I understand that it should be harder to get max enchants but for the master trades it should at least be possible to get protection 4 or sharpness 5 from a master villager. Also it should be based on which biome the villager was born in so that you can still move all of your villagers to your villager trading hall and don't need to fly around the entire world just to get a new set of gear.

  • 11
    Registered User commented
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    I think the changes are pretty good, it changes it up a bit and adds something new. However a decent amount of people don't want to make a village in the swamp and jungle biome so is there any chance we can get some villages for those biomes?

  • 113
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    I don't think this is going to make trading more balanced, just more tedious to do. A lot of time already goes into setting up a maxed out villager trading hall and I'm not gonna want to go through all these extra steps, I'd rather just play a different game at that point. And how are new players supposed to be able to figure out all the biome specific stuff, you shouldn't have to look up information for a game to be able to play it. Please don't go through with this. Looks like I just won't be updating my game or server past the current version 

  • 101
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    So basically, making a villager trading hall has gone to a mildly infuriating task, to a very tedious process requiring transporting villagers over multiple biomes or through the nether. I think that making villager trades based off of biomes is not a good idea. It makes any organization be near impossible due to the player having to travel to different biomes just to find the right enchanted book trade. Not to mention the fact that there are not even jungle or swamp villages, meaning that the player would have to transport villagers to those biomes just to get the trades from those biomes. I think that doing this will make getting enchanted books more of a hassle than it's worth and will have players avoid using librarians in general. Just, please don't do biome stuff.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I feel like we're too deep into the original changes for you to take this, although I kinda like the new pool, I really dislike the level cap on special enchantments

  • 0
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    I feel like the villager book restrictions could work better as a game rule rather than a main feature, because its not a terrible idea, but most players prefer having the enchants completely randomized. Keeping it as a gamerule would open up players to still use the new trading system, but lets the others still play the game the way we want to.

  • 88
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    Buff the enchanting table, don't nerf villagers. Make the enchanting table more like a progression tree. To add diversity to villagers, make the max level trade the book, to encourage players to get varied villagers, but don't force it. Make it still possible to obtain through normal trade with any villager. But most of all: if we go through all the work to get the villager, DON'T GIVE US ONLY LOW LEVEL ENCHANTMENTS.

  • 0
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    I agree that current librarian villager trades are overpowered (hence finding villagers is the first thing I go for when starting a new world) and I see that this change is to "encourage" (force?) players to explore more, but downgrading librarian trades this way does not look fun.

    The players (if they are making optimized gears) either need to rely mostly on enchanting tables instead or travel far "while transporting villagers" - this is a completely different thing from travelling alone and it's definitely annoying with villager's AI. Enchantment results from enchanting tables and world generation for biomes also heavily rely on the players' luck. So, this change only makes "rather easier grinding" to "super troublesome grinding." And many of the master villager trades are not even max level books (so players need to spend even more experience levels with anvil works, which results to more grinding, and have more risk of getting their progress stopped by the "too expensive" message), which makes the whole experience very unrewarding.

    A few of other people's thoughts may be interesting, like making biomes "affect the chances" (instead of hard determining) the book trade options, or having certain blocks nearby affect the book trades so players need to build trading stalls with themes. Or maybe simply make the villager's level reflect the level of enchantment on the book trades, which makes enough sense itself.

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    I don't think updating villagers is a good thing, it puts a lot of pressure on players to run maps and charms, we want to enjoy other things in the game, rather than running around for equipment, mojang, if you still have the same idea, then I would rather stay in 1.19.4 forever

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Give us new, fun stuff. Don't make already tedious stuff even worse.

    The idea of more deterministic trades is good, but this whole set of changes seems like it was contrived to waste people's time. The post says "We hope this makes librarian trading more interesting and skillful", but doing the same thing over and over again is neither interesting nor skillful.

    Getting the enchantments you want is already one of the most grindy and boring parts of the game. Making people find rare biomes AND set up villages there to get two of the most critical enchantments is ridiculous. Unbreaking III and mending are practically required to have any kind of quality of life in game.

    As others have pointed out, the anvil and rework penalty systems really need some changes. You shouldn't have to go to an online calculator website to figure out the order to enchant gear to avoid the cost being too high. This would be especially bad if the villagers only sell low level books.

    If you want to change up the way trades work, give us some advantage for doing extra work. Maybe add cool, but not necessary stuff, like colored rocket trails. Adding biome specific new traders that sell stuff not available for trade now would be something better. Like a villager that sells potions or something.

  • 0
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    Yeah I don’t like these new changes at all. It makes working with villagers far more tedious and straight up less fun.
    Due to random world generaton, biomes are inconsistent, so your closest swamp or jungle could be thousands of blocks away.
    Also, changing the level you can get enchantments at it just not a well thought out idea. Villagers are the most reliable was to get enchantment at a level that won’t max out the anvil when combining, so this makes it impossible to get perfect armor if you don’t want to spend hours upon hours gambling at the enchantment table. As maxing out armor is an endgame thing, it should be kept fairly easy to do for the players who will do it.
    The method is also far more complicated than what is happening now, and locks out more casual players who simply don’t have the time or skills to perform the new method, and also forces you to look it up, as nothing in the game states it.
    As for making mending harder to roll, it’s already plenty hard to get. I distinctly remember spending an hour trying to get mending once before giving up. So yeah, doesn’t need to be made any more difficult. And at high levels, mending’s basically required to keep your good tools and not have to constantly make new ones.
    Overall, changing villagers in this way will make the game far more grindy and far less fun. It would require plenty of changes to the other methods of enchanting to even be particularly fun.
    Basically, don’t make a grindy part of the game more grindy.

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    I like the idea that certain types of books are biome locked but I feel like this isn’t intuitive for players as a whole. it adds A LOT more grinding if someone wants high level enchants for armor to an already grindy system but i do think its in the right direction. My biggest worry is that even when you find one of the special trad books your looking for its not at max level and you have to combine in an anvil an increasingly large amount of times until its too expensive. I know from experience that it gets frustrating when you’ve put a bunch of exp and books into a piece o f armor and then you cant add the last couple because its too expensive. some of the Max enchanted armor may be almost impossible to get or just really frustrating. Also Swamp and jungle villages should defiantly be added otherwise its even less intuitive.

  • 1
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    This doesn't fix the problem and it forces a style of gameplay that some survival players won't appreciate. Part of the survival experience is finding an area to base yourself and grow and expand from there. This book/villager change essentially forces people to build up multiple bases spread out across the world. Not everyone wants to invest time and energy into that. In addition, it's superficial exploration and undermines actual exploration. The enjoyment of Minecraft's exploration comes from natural discovery that triggers the player's imagination. Enchantments are utilities that improve productivity. How productive players can be based on their preferences shouldn't be hampered by location. Blocks on the other hand are things that inspire creativity, so it makes sense to have them spread out and actually discoverable based on locations. 

    The problem is that librarians as a concept just don't work. Why can't you 'discover' a method of particular enchantments yourself? Or how about as a middle ground, some kind of concept of 'Apprenticeship', whether by the player or another villager from a different region? In the case of the player, making them as something unlockable in the enchant table after trading with x-location's librarian x-times. With other villagers, having them spend time with another region's librarians to learn, then, 'spread' that knowledge after spending time with them. The same kind of way gossip and fear spread (obviously with a much greater time scale).

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I can get on board with the biome idea for different books, and only getting the good ones from master level librarians - but to restrict the max levels for books such as protection would need to be accompanied with a change to remove the "too expensive" anvil restriction that would make it impossible to get fully enchanted boots for example.

  • 66
    Registered User commented
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    Understandable but not a fan personally. Can we add NEW content (enchants, ores, mobs, ect) to promote exploring instead of nerfing existing content.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I think the transaction price needs to be modified.
    It would destroy the balance of the trading system to be able to increase emeralds without bringing in new ones just by repeating transactions.
    However, I do not like the idea of changing what can be traded depending on the biome.
    I think casual players will be confused by this change and experienced players will just be more bored.
    Furthermore, why choose a biome where villages do not exist?
    I also do not like the fact that maximum levels cannot be traded.
    If you can't trade at max level, there will be much less people using trading.

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    villagers being biome locked sounds pretty good but you should still be able to get the highest enchants from those villagers, just having to go to a specific biome adds so much more work to getting any enchanted book. otherwise the book combining gets to expensive in an anvil.

  • 97
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    I think changing the librarian's trades to be biome dependent is extremely tedious and unnecessary. It's already hard enough to move villagers where you want them.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I think this is a great idea, but I think you should take it even further and add features like villagers locking their trades if they can't pathfind. Or even locking their trade if their biome changes. Else we still just going to have villager slave camps.

  • 1
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    This is potentially the worst change that has been introduced since the combat change, but even that has the benefit of being towards accessibility. If this feature is to be implemented, it should never be on by default. Especially, and I mean especially, because the current mechanics around anvils are atrocious. Do not go changing the way players have found to fix the problems that have been neglected without fixing the root problems first. Time to sign on to my world and finish the trading hall before this gets added.

  • 1
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    I think it's great that you're changing the wandering trader. I would recommend having it give items that are harder to find early game like moss or saddles. Otherwise it feels like a waste of emeralds.

  • 1
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    I really dont like this suggestion, as some one that always uses villager, so this is what I would do relating to Librarians:

    - Do Not do the biome thing that is way to hard and will make villagers completely redundant.

    - Maybe add the removal of Fishing Rod, Cross Bow and Trident enchants from the pool, the reason for me saying maybe is because this would actually make trading easier as there are less enchants to cycle through, but it would also add back some unique functionality to the enchantment table. So either way is fine.

    - Keep the Zombification changes so you can only cure them once meaning it isn't possible to get every thing for one emerald, and maybe even make this effect ware off over time.

    - Finally in relation to the types of enchants an idea could be that you could corelate the level of the villager to the level of enchants so you would have to level up your villager to get better enchanted books like the level V books (plus you can add mending in at the same level as Level V books) once your villager is maxed, but it is guaranteed to be a max level enchant, this adds a different but more balanced grid. I should note it would be good if there is a much higher chance to get the equivalent enchant.

    I feel this is NOT an improvement to the game. Minecraft its a creative sandbox game and whilst grinding is a good part that adds a sense of achievement I feel that this change will hinder creativity adding to much grind taking away form the core experience of the game.

     

     

  • 0
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    having master level villagers not give you the maxed version of the enchant is going to feel useless. also biomes with no villages in is extremely unfun as there is no efficient way to transport villagers.

  • 50
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    Since villagers are the only way to reliably obtain mending I don't believe you should make it any harder to find. Maybe have the player trade a rare item in exchange for it.

  • 1
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    Minecraft is known for its FREEDOM, what u should do is to satisfy DIFFERENT types of players. U CANNOT force players do anything u want, or it will be contrary to freedom

  • 2
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    I don't care for the changes for the villager trades. The biggest reason is villagers are already horrible to deal with. They're a huge pain moving to and from a area, placing and breaking lectern for the right trade is a chore, but when you do finally roll that enchanted book after breaking that lectern 50+ times it feels rewarding like you achieved something amazing. Also, just don't like the fact that I have to search multiple biomes of each biome to try and find villagers as well as build a base that's somewhat in the same vicinity. If we had better QOL tools, like a mini-map, markers, teleports, ect. Yeah, it would make the search and going to and from multiple villages, whether they're 200-3,000 blocks away, but since we don't have those QOL tools in vanilla Minecraft it would just be a painful , if not impossible, journey. Aswell, theres no guarantee that a village will spawn in the biome we are in, so we would end up having to find another biome, which could be thousands of blocks away. Some biomes, like the jungle, isn't the easiest to locate in the first place. I could see this being done on a single player survival world, though it would be tedious, could be done, but would be treacherous on smps.

  • 0
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    I usually play SMP and I play in a world for as long as a year or two. SMP, for me, means building up infrastructure to enable larger and faster building. I start off with nothing, but toward the end I have automatic storage and resource generating farms, which enable me to build large and complex things.

    Building a villager trading hall the way I like it, currently takes around two weeks for me. That's a lot of work, but work that I enjoy - partly because it makes my base truly a place where I can stock up and restore lost gear. The current changes would drastically change this.

    I like the encouragement to adventure and having to explore to find rare loot - it can be rewarding. But, having to do that same trip just to stock up on books seems incredibly frustrating - especially if you die and lose everything.

    A compromise would be a system where the players would be encouraged to go out and find the enchantments, but would then be able to bring it back home to ones base.


    Maybe the librarians could be taught enchantments? Venture out, find the magic, and bring it home?

    I don't want to start transporting villagers thousands of blocks back to my base. However, I wouldn't mind bringing back magic/enchantment/loot/treasure that fits in the inventory. That actually sounds like fun!