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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 think I'd like to see the tables for each biome's librarian expand so there's more than just 3 potential book options, and up all the master trades to 1 level below max (except Unbreaking, I think that should be 3, since Unbreaking 2 is not equal to Mending)

  • 0
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    I personally like this change, however I noticed that several Enchantments are no longer available from Villagers, notably those for the Trident, Crossbow and Fishing Rod, is this to say these kind of books have to come from other sources (Enchantment Table and Fishing)? I would like if these books were still available, therefore I think Trident and Crossbow should be the only books found in certain locations, i.e Crossbow Enchanted Books are the only books in Pillager Outpost chests and Trident Enchanted Books are the only books in Drowned Monument structure Chests.

  • 1
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    The new changes to the librarians are some very positive ones, it gives consistency to trades and rewards building movement-infrastructure AND makes mending harder to get, but the current enchantment distribution makes some near essential early to mid-game enchantments too hard to get, mainly: unbreaking and respiration (and secondary: feather falling and depth strider), so I suggest switching some enchantments around (maybe with the non-essential add-on enchantments? like fire aspect, flame, thorns, frost walker or the binding curse ?). Also, the 3 crossbow enchantments should probably be in, so to not make the weapon even more left out than it already is (I suggest replacing sweeping edge[cause it's java exclusive] and the 2 curses). Finally, if those experimental changes are implemented, we really need a better and less tedious way to explore the world, walking in circles for hours in search of specific biomes and structure is by far the least fun stuff in the game, something really needs be done.

    And the wandering trader changes are great ! Tho, the selling option needs a bit of a tweak, first by being able to sell a bit more (like 2 or 3 times instead of once) and second by giving more emerald for the water and milk bucket trade (since you lose your iron bucket as well, maybe 5 emeralds instead of 2 ?)

  • 0
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    I love, love, love this change to librarians! Please consider adding similar biome-customized trade changes related to colors for shepherd and mason trades and related to tipped arrows for fletchers.

    I would not want the diamond armor and tool trades to go away altogether, but I expect there are ways to customize the smiths that would encourage exploration as well.

    I would not want this to affect trades of villagers that are already locked on upgrade (haven't tested the update yet to see what happens if a would is upgraded to use this feature)

  • 1
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    I'm not sure this change is the right direction, it makes Villagers more tedious and would probably scare off newer players. In a large biomes, amplified, or regular world you would have to move two villagers a few hundred if not thousands of blocks away in order to get the villager type you want. Moving villagers is challenging. We can't lead them and are forced to use boats, minecarts, or placing and destroying workstations to lead them to where we want to go. The nether does help but it comes with its own challenges.

    I can see a reason behind this change as encouraging players to collect all Villager types, but I feel there could be a more fluid way to achieve this. Perhaps expanding upon existing Villager trades such as adding an emerald for lily pad trade for swamp villagers.

    In my opinion I would prefer to maintain the randomness of the books but lock them to a lower level (perhaps making the level increase as you progress the villager) and to restrict max level and treasure enchants behind Master level villagers. This could be paired with an increased exp threshold required to level up a librarian.

    Quick other thing: it doesn't make sense that you're revealing history of a Villager type that doesn't even have its own Village style. How is a newborn Villager meant to reveal history of a "culture" that they've never experienced before?

  • 51
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    A lot of people dislike this change but I think it is good. The main criticism is that it is too hard, but the main point of Minecraft isn’t to gear up, but rather to build and explore. This change also gives more endgame content which is good as well.

  • 37
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    I wonder if you could bring a specific block from the swamp back to your base to make a villager a swamp villager. This could be an interesting mechanic to influence what type of villager you will get

  • 0
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    I'm really happy with the trades being spread by biome, and I could see a similar system coming to other villagers being a cool change. I appreciate the recent focus on rewarding exploration that we've also seen in things like armor trims being scattered around the world.

    However, like others in the thread are saying, I'm not a big fan of the levels of the special book trades. As the changes stand I can reroll a librarian endlessly to get, say, power V if I have the time to kill, but I can never get unbreaking III or efficiency IV, much less V. It seems like a strange change with how quickly anvil combinations max out. What if the special book was not set to a medium level but had a small chance at the highest level? For instance, jungle librarians had a 90% chance to sell unbreaking II at their max level, and a 10% chance to sell unbreaking III.

    I'm excited to see any other changes brought to 1.20.1 😁

  • 0
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    I feel like these changes go in the right direction but are too design oriented.

    For instance, having a mechanic to get specific enchantments from certain biomes (especially ones where villages don't generate) is a very good idea, but having to do it 7 different times is only great on a spreadsheet.

    Curing villagers once to get a good discount is better for the experience. But using the trading UI gets tedious when prices are high because we can't do the 12 trades in one go.

    Players will have to work towards getting the best trades instead of relying on random chance

    Yes, it was very repetitive to reset a villager, but biomes are even MORE based on random chance! Random biome proximity is going to have an even greater impact on how random the difficulty of having all enchantments is.

    Lastly, I feel like book trading is a topic of its own and has different concerns than regular trading. It's weird to have an update on book trading without anything related to anvils and/or the enchanting table.

    Suggestions

    • Diversify the obtention of the different enchantments because anything will get boring the seventh time. This can be done over several updates.
    • Librarians don't have to give access to all the enchantments anyway. This is the root of most of the issues related to book trading.
    • Keep the reward of creating our own village but only make us do it once per world please.
  • 0
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    First of all, this sentence

    Players will have to work towards getting the best trades instead of relying on random chance

    doesn't really hold: rerolling trades and breeding is work, and at the same time these changes still make trades dependent on luck in some significant ways (biome generation).

    Early game may get randomly get much more difficult - it is normal to get desert or snow biomes generated thousands of blocks from spawn. This especially affects people who prefer force their way through it quickly (like me).

    Most annoying change quality-of-life-wise is removing max level books from trades (if I understand the changelog correctly). To get a maxed out sword or boots, you need to collect around 12 books, instead of todays 6-7. This raises complication of an already subtle and multi-step process (you already need multiple anvil uses, in right order to minimize XP used and avoid "Too Expensive"). Most harshly hit are communism servers which focus on big community projects, as they need a stable supply of armor and tools for new and respawning players.

    Other nerfs are annoying in some specific scenarios, but generally can be coped with: removing trident, crossbow and fishing rod enchantments from trading, multiple curing bonuses (thank you, raid farms), requirement of long range villager transport for a trading hall.

    Wandering Trader remains an annoyance and nothing more, due to his unreliability and the fact he can spawn on almost any block, including redstone and glass.

  • 1
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    Big change, I like the way they balanced how they get these enchantments.

    This change is super positive for progression, before it was very easy and fast to get a maximum enchanted set and now it will take time, something I totally agree with since it is a good reward.

    I understand that some people may disagree with these changes saying it will be more tedious and difficult for new players, but I don't think they see the whole picture.

    With these changes you encourage the exploration of more biomes, structures and even the use of the enchantment table returns, something that personally I have not done for a long time.

    On the other hand, it will be difficult to move villagers to another biome, for me this is not a problem, but for some players it is. there are also the players of a super flat world. all that aside, it really is a very cool change to the librarians. Keep up with these updates, they really are changing the game for the better.

  • 1
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    The enchanting table is not good for getting depthstrider or resperation is a pain and making it only on swamp villagers is bad and on a world I play on the nearest swamp is thousands of blocks away and the nether is a pain and transportating villagers is bad and worse on bedrock witch I play on with villagers taking the villager I am resetting job site

  • 348
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    Please stop removing sand from the box. If people want to explore, they will. 

    If people don't like the trades, they don't have to use them. Those who think this adds balance would be better served with server configuration options. This allows more play types to continue as they like without the sand taken out from under them in favor of another play style.

  • 0
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    this is going to make it more tedious to get set up, if you really want people to explore their worlds just give them the inventory space to do so without having to complete the end for shulkers, i personally always start with bonus chest on new worlds just to try and shave 5 minuets off getting set up to explore

  • 0
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    We should split out reactions since this snapshot is loaded with them.

    I love and support the upgrades to the wandering trader!  It's great to have it be useful.  I love the fact that we can sell items.  I hope that it will benefit from a reputation discount, same as villagers, so if you have HOTV, or sell a lot of stuff, prices are reduced.  That way it'll encourage players.

    Also, I think they could be improved by creating different types, maybe biome-related and with different levels (same as villagers).  All that really would need to change is the robe color to represent the biome and a badge for the level.  Then you could have biome specific offers of item types (like the logs), and better items based on level (better axe enchants).  

    It would also be fantastic to add some more exotic items as the level increased.

    Swamp trader novice: mud, oak, orchids; journeyman: mud, mangrove, slime; expert: packed mud, mangrove, lilypads; master: packed mud, mangrove, bucket of tadpoles

     

  • 0
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    Dear Moyang Team
    To be honest, I don’t know what I should think about that. It is true, villager trading is relatively easy, BUT I don’t think it would be good to include specific biomes to a specific book. It would make more sense for example to have a villager, which can change his trades 5 times (or more or less) and then the villager trade is locked. To get other enchantments you have to either breed a new villager or just get another one from a village. That would cause, that people are NOT tied to a biome and the villager within. That would be a solution, which is harder but not too hard for casual Minecraft players. I think it wouldn’t be a too dumb idea if you ask me. Feedback for my idea would be nice.
    Best regards,
    GHG4244

  • 0
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    Not really a fan of this change. Feels like it adds complexity just for complexity's sake instead of something that fits within the lore of the game. I think this will negatively affect newer/less experienced players the most and end up discouraging them from getting/using enchantments. I'd hate to see something like this leave a bad taste in their mouths and they end up just picking a different game to play that involves less steps for something similar. 

  • 1
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    I honestly don't think that curing villagers multiple times is a problem, it's very powerful but you need large amounts of gold to do it, which combined with the blaze powder needed makes trading halls a solid mid-lategame tool . Level 5 trades also do not do much but save tedium, with xp farms being so easy to make it just adds unecccasary tedium in the process of making good gear, without actually making it challenging in a fun way. Emeralds are also fairly easy to obtain in large amounts(raid farms, sticks, crops, etc), making the increased costs less of a difficulty increase and more of a "oh god I have to use 5 slots to get enough emeralds/trade materials to do me trade" type of tedium increase. That being said, I do think that the multiple biome solution is interesting, given it eliminates the rng required to reroll librarians, although as others have said making it require a block or some other "proof" of reaching that biome would have a similar effect. Currently transporting mobs is a large inconvinence, perhaps if it was made easier or if you were able to change the local biome it would work. If certain enchantments(prot 4/level 5 enchants/mending) were locked behind an item or a treasure, that could reduce the boring rng-based procedure of rerolling while also incentivising exploration, as well as locking the powerful items behind lategame(maybe located in deep dark biomes or end cities?)

  • 72
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    If you make minecarts faster and rails use copper, then transporting villagers will be an easier process.

  • 0
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    I have some thoughts about this. I understand where they're coming from, but the current implementation of it I do not like. Let's say you set up all your trading at a centralized location. This means you must now find or take 2 villagers to every biome, breed them, then take who knows how many back to your centralized system. The only case where I can see biome specific book trades being viable is if those trades were ONLY treasure enchants you could otherwise a: not find in an enchanting table and b: only otherwise find in random chests.

    Further, I do not like some books no longer being acquirable by trading and others being limited on their level. Enchanting tables already have trouble giving Level 5 enchants, which made villager trading the only way to get those. IF enchanting (and anvil combining) were simultaneously overhauled, I could see the level limits being viable. The level 30 limit on anvil combining is already limiting enough without this trading limit being added.

    I do get not letting the best enchants be at Novice, but maybe there's a way to hard code the pool of enchants and give everything a slot at a specific level, and leave Master to Treasure Enchants (even based on biome). Desert/Savanna/Plains - Mending; Taiga/Snowy - Frost Walker; Swamp/Jungle - Swift Sneak. All biomes would also have in their pools the Curse books and possibly all the level 5 books. This would bring back trading to maximum level to find those best enchantments w/o biome limiting them.

  • 226
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    Librarian balancing is a much needed change. However, locking certain enchantments behind certain biomes could end up being tedious, and locking them behind biomes where villages don't even naturally spawn is a bad idea. Players should not be required to build their own villages, a clunky and tedious experience, just to access certain enchantments; they should all be accessible within natural villages.

  • 0
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    Not a huge fan of this change. It makes it difficult to get certain enchantments easily. It takes so much more time and difficulty to get enchants like Mending and Unbreaking, and it also makes villages desperately need to be more common with more biome variety, otherwise I might be locked to not using certain enchantments and am at the mercy of the biome and seed dependent on where the villages are. 

  • 0
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    Please revert this. I understand wanting to make certain enchantments harder to get, but the biome specific books doesn’t even make any sense. There aren’t zany swamp villages, jungle villages, etc. so the player has to build them, get villagers in them, and then hope they get what they’re looking for. That’s too tedious for a single item.

  • 0
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    I feel that the villager curing change is really big and a lot of people like myself won’t find this as a good change. It would be great to add a game rule to disable the new change with the curing. Players would love to be able to cure villagers multiple times. Also librarians shouldn’t allow the bookshelf trade to go below 3 emeralds because you can break the bookshelf for books and just sell the books. Please take this into account while developing 1.20.2. Keep up the great work mojang!

  • 0
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    I like that there is some incentive to explore. However:

    If certain enchantments are being locked to biomes, I don't think it's fair that the player has to create a village themselves, particularly because of how far away Jungles and Swamps can be from a village of another biome, and because of the difficulty of transporting a villager or villagers to those biomes because of hilly terrain or because of how nerfed minecarts are in terms of speed and transportability.

    Instead, I propose that these biomes(and maybe other biomes without villagers yet!) should get village types of their own, just as much rarer versions than the typical villages are. Perhaps Swamp, Jungle, etc villages chances to generate should be almost as rare as abandoned villages currently are, so that way there is a small chance that a player can come across a village of those biomes.

    Of course, this isn't as easy as just flipping a switch. I'm sure there's some backend changes to be made, such as fixing villager pathfinding for water(I believe this is why swamp villages were left out of 1.14?) and some changes would need to be made to Jungles to accommodate villages, either by making the villages generate in the Sparse Jungle, or by tweaking the regular Jungle terrain to be more flat and to figure out a way to do villages suspended above the ground between trees. But I think in the long run it would be a marvelous change and make seeking out these biomes and villages a more rewarding experience for players.

  • 0
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    I think the enchants being villager biome specific is actually pretty cool. It does make it so some of the less used biomes have more of a use and will make players more spread around the world and more adventurous. I don’t like that villagers won’t sell all kinds of enchanted books tho because there is such a limited amount of structures that you can get books from. Especially on SMPs that have 20+ active members players will have to travel possibly more than 10k blocks just to find a single type of book. Now if villagers sold all kinds of enchants but you needed a specific kind of biome then it would still make all the enchants available while making players more adventurous. If you really want to make some of the enchants harder to get than others then maybe add the nether or even the end to the list of biomes that you need to trade with villagers from, this will make it more challenging but still guarantee that you won’t need to go across the world just to maybe find a specific enchant in a random structure. Additionally, by making these changes to villager trading you would have to change how economics with the villagers work. The cost of getting these books would need to heavily change to reflect the work put into even making the book available.

  • 0
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    I would love if the book enchantment types, levels, and biomes were all data driven as this would players to decide what is fair for their own worlds. This will also help minimize community backlash. 

    Possibly also add a gamerule to turn off these feature, though all changes made in this snapshot would be enabled by default. 

  • 0
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    Not a fan of the new biome specific trading, but I do like the Wandering Trader change! The wandering trader needed some more purpose. But I do not like locking enchantments based on biome.

  • 0
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    + I love the enchantment grind being less RNG-based, and I think the way it's going to be implemented may just be the best way to fit the fix into the game. Having to mindlessly break and replace lecterns until you get your desired trade was a really mind-numbing task.
    + While I find the removal of discount stacking upsetting, I think it's the right thing to do. It really threw the mid-to-late-game balance off with the infinite emeralds.

    +/- I don't mind the removal of the trident and crossbow enchantments from the sold enchantments, as ultimately, they are both either end-game items or completionist items depending on your playstyle. Neither of their enchantments take too long to find by enchanting books, either.

    - What I find upsetting is that the final, master-tier enchantments are low-tier. Having to transport villagers to a jungle (which, depending on your seed, could be thousands of blocks away), breed them there, and transport their offspring back to your base is a whole lot of work for Unbreaking 2. It's a very basic enchantment, and even after all that work, it's not even at its highest level. The same applies to Sharpness and Efficiency, as I believe they should be sold as level 4s (Enchanting cost grow really quick if you don't know the method!).

    - This change is also very unintuitive for new players. How is someone who doesn't read the patch notes supposed to know they need to create a makeshift village in a swamp or jungle in order to get a specific enchantment?

  • 0
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    I think the zombie curing is fair, but the biome specific trades needs some work. The most important thing IMO,is that this change should only ever even be considered if there is a new easy and consistient way to actually move villagers and get them to go where you want.