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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
    Registered User commented
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    I don't really dislike the idea of new exchanges with villagers, but I find it VERY INDIFFERENT to what current Minecraft is, and I think it shouldn't be added to the game, although wandering villagers maybe should be added.

  • 1
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    The new changes to book trading is counter-intuitive. The lower level of books makes it so that anvils require more exp to bring them up to maximum level but when you try to apply the books to the tool it becomes “too expensive” and therefore a waste of time as you have to completely scrap it and start over to try to get the correct combination in order to just barely go under the limit. The biome exclusive book trades are also not at all communicable to any player without a guide. This isn't even including the villager types that don't generate naturally. The Wandering Trader is a nice change though. Being able to sell items to one allows much more opportunities for self-imposed challenges such as Skyblock or Superflat Survival. It also just makes it easier to jump into the trading market as a whole without having to reroll trades or slay Illagers. I suggest that maybe a system similar to armour trims could help with the librarian situation. A system where the player must already have the Enchanted Book and can pay a librarian to copy its contents into a new book to get two in return. This may cause over stacking potentially but this is already a problem with Enchanted Books, specifically cursed ones. So it's not that large of an issue. Then again, it could open the window to fix grindstone over stacking as well.

  • 0
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    Looking at it there are some major issues that can come around doing this. While locking some enchantments behind area's like frost walker behind the ice, there is a lot that doesn't make sense. Now outside of lore it just makes somethings more of a pain to do. Like I enjoy villager trading halls, but it's already a pain to have to transport villagers. Someone having to maybe transport a villager thousands of blocks just to get a mending book could be a real pain for someone who likes trading halls. Not only that with the villagers having a max of like prot 3 and not 4 it makes getting the perfect armor impossible with how combining the books together would give you the "Costs too much." And this is all in a basic game. If you wanted to play a superflat you can't get anything outside the plains trades. meaning it makes it that much harder to have armor that won't break on you. Unless you want to get rid of any enchantment you might have previously put on it by healing it with a diamond. Which then only being able to heal a villager once to lower prices means you have to spend even more time trading to be able to heal it again. It makes it more of a chore. When I was younger I never liked villager trading because I never used wikis or tutorials and understood how useful they could be. Now there's even more of a barrier without those resources to be able to get into it. While some of it may be a fun addon the point it is now seems too extreme for normal gameplay or impossible.

  • 1
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    If this update came out it would be awful. It almost removes the village and pillage update. The lag would be awful because of having to move all these villagers to different biomes. The curing part is fine but everything else is just not it. If people are complaining about the "randomness" just don't make sense because the only other way to get enchants is enchant tables which are almost just as random. Like come on.

  • 1
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    The biome specific trade are interesting but books like efficiency are great quality of life that I don't think should be so difficult to get access to. I am also worried about anvil costs (Too Expensive!) becoming more of an issue is you have to combine books several times, and then add them to an item. I don't know if removing the xp cost limit or reworking the xp cost is a better solution. My main concern is about not allowing villagers to be cured more than once. Doing so is expensive, difficult to set up, and gives a pretty marginal reward unless you cure several villagers many times each. I think the cost of curing several villagers multiple times is enough work to justify the very powerful result.

  • 0
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    I like the Idea of the different enchantments for different villages,  but mending is the most used enchantment and I would like it to be found im a village more common instead of swamp. Nobody uses the sawmp village and they are practically never found. This makes getting mending very hard. It isnt worth the time for the player to find the already rare sawmp biome and to find a very rare swamp village.

  • 0
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    Having a master librarians final trade be a Tier 2 book is broken. Much in the same way enchanting is broken where you can do a max level enchant and get stuck with Tier I enchants, it doesn’t make sense that you go through all the work to get a master librarian and get stuck with a Tier II book. Tier III at minimum should be the final trade. Seems useless to do all the work and only receive Fortune II and Unbreaking II.

  • 99
    Registered User commented
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    Please, don't add this to the game.

  • 1
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    I feel that this could be a great way to rebalance the game under a few different circumstances.
    A) the anvil limit HAS to be removed. Too many people don’t know how to get maximum value out of their anvils and so many people are going to be heavily punished for this. To the point that they may not want to play this wonderful game anymore.

    B) Better villager transportation. Maybe they can actually be attached with leads or will follow you if you have emeralds in your hand. But to transport them SOOO far through any of these other methods we have now would be so incredibly costly that I feel like librarian villagers will become obsolete and no longer wanted.

    C) Convenience. Emeralds would need to become more common to find in the world. Yes I know raid farms are an answer to this but I feel like that shouldn’t be the ONLY answer. Having emeralds spawn more commonly in the world would not only encourage more mining but enable the player to trade consistently if they so choose.

    D) Don’t change the zombie curing. The zombie curing is a great idea that I think if you have that many resources to cure repeatedly, than you should be able to do it.

    Overall I think the idea of having villages with different librarian trades is a very cool idea that could In the future spark many many ideas and encourage more adventure in the world. But If these considerations aren’t taken into account than I think the old system is just better for the overall community.

  • 0
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    I absolutely hate the librarian trade changes proposed. I truly do not have the amount of time requirements that it will take to get even moderately decent armor/tools once this change goes through. 

    The amount of time that it would take to find all the biomes, make villages/safe trading spaces in each biome -- including moving villagers to the 'bonus' biomes is a time investment I really can't afford. Sure -- I can lookup where biomes and villages are, but that ruins half the fun. 

    So... I just have bad armor and tools unless I can commit the time to spend making all these villages -  and not even for the top enchants?  And then I will likely run into too expensive issues when trying to combine books to get the better enchants?

    Working with and transporting villagers can  already be a frustrating process --I'm finding it incredibly hard to believe that making these changes will make it "more interesting". 

    I've enjoyed a lot of the recent updates that make exploring more fun -- but this is just a total miss for me.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I think
    it's not very good,becase a biome in Minecraft is too large to come and find another biome quickly.So we must use some tools to find it.But it's not original survive.
    Just let the villagers stand on different blocks,and players can buy and sell different items.
    Hope mojang can see this reply.

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    I saw a great idea in the reddit discussion on this that said you should be able to put the enchanted book you want a villager to offer you on its lectern. Forces you to explore and interact with the world while making the best books take longer to get yet removing the unfun aspect of breaking and replacing lecturns. You could also add more enchanted books to archeology to give it some actual uses

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    Just leave the trading system, its really hard to find some specific biome with world generation like now

  • 1
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    I get that you're trying something new because some (popular on YouTube) people are crying for a rebalance of villager trading.
    Unfortunately not everyone has the time to spend grinding for resources all day because that's what we do for a living - if we don't want to play in creative mode villager trading is the way to go to somewhat reduce the workload to get the things we need.
    So IF a player is actually willing to spend literal real days to get all the exact trades they need, which is a very laborious task that needs to be done once, just in order to be able to get the material they need in the long run with then somewhat of an acceptable time input, then let them have it!
    Nobody is forced to use villager trading. Nobody is forced to get all the best trades they need - anyone can put as much time into it as they are ok with.
    Reducing the maximum level of enchantment we can get and on top of this tying this to specific biomes one might not even have on their map is just downright bad. While current villager trading might not be perfect it's good enough for what I dare to say the majority of players want and they are the ones you should have in mind first.
    If you feel like changing villager trading, make it a custom rule that can be switched active when setting up the world or make it a world type option. Or even a game mode in between Hard and Hardcore would be an option that adds the new villager trading. But for any casual players time invested for trades is good as it is!

  • 0
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    “ 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…”

    If this is the intent behind these changes, then you should try again. Villager trading is boring and tedious. It is already work to get enchantments from librarians. These changes will only add to the effort. If you really want to make, not just librarian trading, but all trading more interesting and more skillful, then you need to rework the mechanic entirely. You want the enchanting table to be used more? Then you need to rework that as well.

    I also hope you consider that enchantments allow some of us to play the game the way we want. And it is never fun losing a set of armor and tools and being forced back into the process of getting properly equipped. This is my first consideration whenever I build a trading hall. This why I amass backup gear and enchanted books. Please, do not add to this process.

  • 1
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    If no more gameplay is added, simply increasing the difficulty of acquisition is meaningless

  • 0
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    I have 2 ideas that i think could be really cool.

    1st - Having a small chance for the villagers to trade a maxed book as its special trade, for example efficiency 5.

    2nd - Jungle + mangrove villages for those villager types to have a home.

  • 1
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    Trades by biome seems like a good way to introduce unique experiences to different places. I like the swamp & jungle villager assets but had no reason to use them before this. The villages already look different, so why can't the villagers also be different?

     

    However, I think reducing trades to a biome already increases the difficulty for enchanted books enough, and that taking away max level books is a step in the wrong direction. There is already so much variance between costs for the exact same enchantment, and now you are locking enchantments to locations. The way I see it, once we get a villager with a book we have that specific enchant readily available. Unlocking a 'special' trade makes it readily available. The 'special' trade for a given biome should be rewarding. I shouldn't be "rewarded" with a guaranteed sub-max level enchantment - all it means is that I will have to trade more times with a villager. It doesn't make it more difficult, it doesn't add to the experience of levelling, it just means that I have to trade more for the same enchantment. If I've gone through the trouble of getting a specific biome's librarian to it's maximum level, I should at least have a chance to get the highest level of enchantment. Even if it worked like it does now where you might get sharpness 3 but you could get sharpness 5, it should still be possible.

  • 0
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    I think personally the Wandering trader idea is great but the villager situation should stay the same. 

  • 18
    Registered User commented
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    I expect wondering trader can have lava bucket or other rare items with higher prices instead of water bucket.

  • 0
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    I agree that villagers need to be nerfed, but this solution forces players down a specific and tedious path.

    The villager biomes can be spread very far apart, like they are in my world; the closest swamp is over 1000 blocks away, and the closest cold biomes are three times as far. This makes it very difficult to find the needed biomes. Then there's the hassle of getting villagers there. Ignoring the fact that most would probably want to bring the villagers back to their base, this is already a lot of work. And for trades that apparently aren't max level anymore, I don't think it's worth it.

    Not to mention that not all players want to do this. Minecraft is meant to be a sandbox game, and this makes finding and getting villagers from those biomes feel like a necessity, not an option. 

    I think that this is not a solution to the problem. It's making a bigger problem. 

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    i love the idea of adding strategy to trading i just dont like having to travel so far to get different trade types, i also i dont that you cant get the maxed books anymore, i think a better change would be just making it so the higher level villagers for example masters tend to trade better books, to incentivise people maxing then out  rather than just getting lucky, i also think that the wandering trader could do with further buffs

  • 0
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    I dont like this change with villigers now no one will use them besides in farms it is fine just the way it is now but we could upgrade the wanding trater because he is vary dumb and only gives you leads or sablings and conduet shells and thats all thats usefull for him

  • 0
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    I love the idea that the books they sell depend on which villager variant they are however, I'm a little concerned about the Jungle and Swamp Villagers since it's not as obvious that they are in the game. Something similar to the igloo, where the igloo teaches players about curing zombie villagers. Something else could be used to teach players about different villager variants that are not usually available. Something like a swamp hut with 3 beds and 2 different villagers variants in it, say savannah and plains (Think lovers that run off to start their own life away from home) and some carrots or potatoes in it, this could prompt the player to bread the villagers and get a baby swamp villager demonstrating the concept. Alternatively, jungle and swamp villages could be added making for some unique structures as jungle villages could be in the trees, and swamp villages could have homes over the swampy terrain. As for the changes like only offering Sharpness 3 and Efficiency 3 as special trades, I'm not as sure. My thought is this may start to cost players too many levels to add enchantments to their gear. I would hope this means the level cap for using an anvil to add enchantments and rename gear is increased past 40 levels, seeing as new enchantments are added every few updates. I do agree that the enchants should be harder to obtain, another idea would be to reduce the price discount received by the player for curing the villager so it can not reach 1 emerald per book.

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    It's already a pain to transport villagers, and now you want to FORCE us to transport them 10 times more? I really don't mind the book removals, but these changes are not good. Not only have you made villager moving required, as some of the biomes listed don't have natural villagers, you then have to get those villagers back to your base.

    And that's not even mentioning your 'game of the year edition' spreadsheet. How would a casual player ever figure this out? They'd just be confused why they can't find the book anymore and waste hours trying to figure it out. A game should never -require- the wiki to be played.

    If you want to limit villager trading, then this is not the way. I would recommend something much simpler. Hear me out: select a book, and lock it in. Instead of the random rng, allow us to select the trades we want and 'lock' them in for that villager. Do this for all villagers. It greatly cuts down on the annoying break renew break renew cycle villager trading has.

    Unless you give us the ability to put leads on villagers, this is not a good idea. Please don't do this.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I love the idea of the librarian change but in actual gameplay it can be way too tedious. I hate having to move mobs from biomes, villagers especially so if the nearest snow biome is 200 blocks away from the nearest village not to mention getting villagers up a mountain is possibly the worst thing, maybe there is a better way to nerf librarians. The Wandering Trader buff is cool but still lacking I feel they should have a bit more of the more rare items or just things that can be tedious to get but only be able to sell so much. I love that Mojang is trying to fix villagers and I trust yall to make the right choices.

  • 1
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    Maybe instead of having to travel to many different villiages many thousands of bocks apart (especially in large biome worlds) Librarian Villiagers could have a sort of tech-tree or set path so that based on what they have initially, you know what books you can eventually get. Kindof like a viliager sub-profession

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Excellent changes that help dismantle the meta.

    Players are understandably upset about the rebalancing, but I think with time people will end up realizing that this isn't much more tedious than how villager trading currently works. Would you rather spend 45 minutes replacing lecterns to get the villagers you need, or 45 minutes trading with a few villagers to level them up to get the trades you need? Both routes take the same amount of time, but one of them requires the player to interact with many more mechanics and perform a variety of tasks; the other gives the player carpal tunnel.

    On top of that, this change encourages exploration; discourages trading hall abuse - which has been a common complaint for a while now; helps flesh out the midgame and provide more extrinsic goals - which addresses another common complaint, the lack of extrinsically motivating content.

     

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    Make the wandering trader have a very small chance to have an armor trim that comes from the trail ruins.

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    Okay so the Wandering Trader change is fine, and I will admit the Zombie nerf is necessary for balancing. But locking enchantments to specific villagers? Absolutely not. Working with villagers is already painful enough as it is with no way to get them to follow you, and now you want me to have to hunt down several *different* villages in different biomes just to get Silk Touch, Unbreaking, and Mending in the same trading hall? Nah nah, that ain't cash money right there.