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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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  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    Update very cool, personally I would add villages in the swamp and in the Jungle. An interesting idea would be to add a drow villager that can be healed just like a zombie villager. And just after healing such a villager, he could sell books related to the trident. Going this way if we already have ruins, sunken ships or underwater temples then maybe it's time for ocean villages? Such villages could appear on the island, of course I would think about the decorations and the very look of such a village. And the pouches I am just going to test :)

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    More specific for this trading change (considering I already made other suggestions about what this would rather need or why other features would need priority over a change like this) :

    ✓ It is good that different biomes have different enchantments.
    → The missing types should have villages with the new blocks from that biome.

    ✓ It is good that enchantments are sorted by tier, e.g. the highest tier only attainable by master librarians. In part this is true already for other villager professions (black smith, mason) and it makes sense.
    → Some high tiers are not really desirable (Efficiency III) also because of the stacking xp cost if you combine books and want to rename tools. Either combining of tools (including multiple renaming) should also be rebalanced or at least be the high tier be e.g. Efficiency IV, Fortune III, etc. 

    ✓ It is good that different biomes have different enchantments and that a bit of 'lore' is added to the village types.
    → Transport of villagers should be easier and more reliable.

     

    I have another suggestion for a villager trading mechanic to make this all better in the next post.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    This change kind of stinks tbh. BUT, there are other things you can implement into the game to make it a bit more balanced.

    Perhaps have a couple wandering, jobless villagers in each biome so it’s easier to start a village from scratch. Waiting for zombie villagers and potions just takes too long. Either that or make villagers easier to transfer. I mean….. c’mon, they’re the most annoying things to move around.

    There could also be some buffs to the anvil and the enchantment table. Get rid of the ‘Too expensive!’ and make combining books easier. And with the enchantment table….. yeah, not sure what could be done. Maybe that idea can be left alone.

    Overall, I prefer the way it is and don’t really like this change, but there could be some new things in the game to make it balanced and make getting those max trades more attainable (but keeping it less attainable than it is now, ofc).

    Everyone saying villagers are too easy are a bunch of babies.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Not an experienced player here. Moving villagers to create a village in specific locations seems a far distance and a lot of tedium. Without improvements to npc handling (not saying leads) if the seeds are large biomes that seems awful. Decreasing the buffs for curing is reasonable, but I say that as I am not a player who cures for a better deal.  As for the wandering trader, I think you should be able to sell items to the trader and earn enough emeralds to buy items on the same visit. Players should be able to earn 5 emeralds thru trades, perhaps not every time, but have it in the mix. 

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Wandering trader

    Great changes, being more useful is great and I can see some amazing fun coming from providing invis pots. It would be nice to see them have rarer items , so players can actually be excited to see them and check their trades. Even with these buffs I doubt many players will enjoy their presence still.

     

    Librarians

    Fixing zombie curing trades is good with me, especially if it was a bug. 

    The rest is just bad, it polices how certain people want to play the game and can drastically increases the time to recover from death. Increasing the grind before they get to have fun again.

    It only makes trading halls horribly tedious for casuals. Which means the alternative becomes mob grinders, sitting AFK to grind XP to play the lottery with enchants, with a mending villager on hand for that single enchantment. Another tedious grind after a demoralizing death.

     

    Solution?

    I appreciate the effort to break up the meta of trading halls. I'd suggest buffing repairing to nerf mending, removing stacking repairs costs and "too expensive", this makes mending less of an essential enchant.

    Second, add more exclusive enchants, like infinity vs mending. Making it less valued.

    Third, buff enchanting as a whole, make books less viable to discourage trading by buffing enchantability on tools. Better yet, add some interaction to let enchants be visible, e.g having a dragon egg in the setup lets you see the enchant. Though this may be too far and kill trading all together by killing book's value.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I already hate having to deal with villagers especially in bedrock and this just seems like your making 100x more annoying it's not the way the trades are set up that people hate its the way the villagers act and seem to actively work against you every single step of the way all this is gonna do is force people to spend way more time and effort for a lesser reward

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    It seems to me that such a system of trade with residents takes place, but it needs to be done so that it can be turned off or turned on before generating the world. It's too long and laborious. It is necessary to give players the opportunity to choose the "complexity" of the functioning of their world. This feature can completely alienate new players from trading in principle. And not all experienced players want to search for ALL biomes and villages. We are not talking about the obligation to manually build some villages in certain biomes. As an option to complicate the game - yes. As a basic mechanic, no.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Personally I think that you shouldn't change the villager trading system and that you should keep it the way it was because I think mainly for single player it would make it alot more stressful for the player and that it would just be simpler for it to be the way it was. You could still tweak it a bit but not too drastically that it would mean that it would change the way the game works. I hope this made sense and helped you with rethinking the idea, but I think that it would just be better to keep them the way it was.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Great changes, very cool that the strongest enchantment(mending) is now harder to get.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    THIS IS PERFECT! Please, make villager's comfort meter, like, if he is going to be in 1:2 square prices will be higher

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    The idea is cool, but please don’t remove the max enchantment level(Efficiency 4,Sharpness 4), it is getting way too expensive and hard to get the villager ,then upgrade him to master lever and get the enchantment.If you don’t remove it , i’ll love the update.

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    Suggestion for more fun controlled unlocking of trades:

    It would be cool, when certain village types have specific enchantments that when unlocking those enchantments, you could have complete control depending on the item you add to the equation:


    Let's say you are in a Swamp, with a librarian here you can get either Depth Strider, Respiration or the Vanishing Curse. What if there was a new slot in the UI that unlocks once you have traded once with the villager that is kind of like a bribe slot. And there you can (optional) bribe the villager with an additional item related to the enchantment on what to unlock next.
    E.g. a Pufferfish (+book+emeralds) for Respiration, ice (+book+emeralds) for Depth Strider. Only within what it possible in this biome anyway and as it is optional, it could still be up to chance if the player prefers that. This would give the player more control and less times wasted on randomness and could also make it reasonable to reduce the price on the books from the start since you provided even more of the materials for the librarian to make your product and it would give additional use for useless or underrated items. They can also be stacked so it could be every five of theses items gives one emerald reduction on the starting price of the book.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I don't really like the idea of trading in this snapshot. Kind of cool, because it means that if you want to have all the enchants, you have to either struggle and bring villagers from all biomes to the base, or, which is the cool option, make villages on different biomes and fly there when you need to. There are no villages in the swamps, so you'd have to transport villagers from other biomes, which isn't DIFFICULT, just TIME-consuming and ANNOYING. If Mojang introduced, for example, an additional raid level after which you unlock the ability to buy, for example, mending, it would be a fun, DIFFICULT, not ANNOYING challenge.

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    Combining low-tier books is something I rarely ever do due to the risk of running into the "Too Expensive" message in the anvil. I think if the change of villagers only selling lower-tier books is going to be made the anvil xp system should receive an update.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Im not opposed to the idea of have biome specific trades but here’s another suggestion. Rather than only nerfing the villagers why not buff the enchantment table? I mean it is a magic book after all. I guess you could have tiers of enchantments based on not just bookshelves but now the new chiseled book shelves. So lets say for each chiseled bookshelf you have with enchanted books you gain access to new enchantments that otherwise you wouldn’t usually find. Then when you have the enchantment table surrounded by chiseled bookshelves with enchanted books you gain access to all enchantments and possibly the ability to read the enchantments before applying them. They would still be random of course but it would be a nice reward for the grind. That way it strikes a balance between grinding and exploration with the villagers since I would assume that this means different village types in the future.

  • 35
    Registered User commented
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    I think this idea is bad because
    a very strong decrease in the price of a resident was available in the later stages of the game, where development is no longer boring, it will greatly distract from creativity, forcing you to search for the right biomes for a very long time, which in the later stages of the game has no difference with getting a resident with the right enchantment

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Overall I think that this is an ok change to a little bit of a broken system. I think that the idea to have players make their own villages in the jungle and swamp biomes is a good idea but not very intuitive for new players. I personally don’t like the change at all but agree that something should be done in regards to balancing, but I also think with how hard it is to control villagers that the old system can be justified. I love the wandering trader changes as it makes them a bit more useful early game. I think that if these villager changes stick that they should be controllable through the create new world screen.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I don’t like this change, I would be fine with the biome dependent enchantments but not being able to get the max level enchantments makes it not even worth the grind to get it. If you have to combine 2 unbreaking 2 books to get unbreaking 3 then you can’t get all the enchantments most people want on their boots.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I believe that enchantments at max villager level should be at max level since books can only be combined 6 times in the game and because of this, players will not be able to enchant things with 6 enchantments

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I actually like the concept of the biome dependant enchants but I think other things in the game should be changed before doing this. Since theres no naturally spawning villagers in jungles and swamps, villager relocating and breeding should be at least a bit more intuitive and feel more intended as a mechanic. It really feels more like an exploit rather than a mechanic whenever it comes to getting villagers to go somewhere else.
    Maybe a little trust system where if you've traded enough with a villager you can ask them to follow you? Then you'd be able to walk them to the nearest swamp/jungle and build a little house for them with two beds as a minimun for them to live there. Either something like that or new village types for those biomes which sounds like a bigger chore.
    In the subject of making mending harder to get, it would be REALLY nice if anvils received some changes. The way they currently work is confusing and annoying with the weird limits and punishment for repairing tools. I'd prefer if the material cost increased for repairing instead of xp as again, theres a limit for that. One alternative I can think of is having wondering traders sell something like a repair kit? Which would be a free full repair on a tool by combining it with the tool on a anvil or smithing table. Another alternative could be being able to ask a blacksmith villager to repair your tool, with increasing emerald cost each time or something like that.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    While i think biome dependent trades are an interesting concept, it will be too confusing for new Players.

    Having some enchantments reserved for master librarians is also a good idea, but it think they should sell max level enchantments (Efficiency V, Unbreaking III, etc.) otherwise making good armor will cost too much xp.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    As many have said, the issue isn't that villager trading is easier than regular enchanting and exploration, but that it's more reliable. I do think villager trading needs a rework because refreshing a librarian repeatedly to get an easy source of mending books is braindead easy. But I also think a rework of the enchanting system is more needed especially if you're going to take away the current very reliable way of getting specific enchantments. Perhaps making the enchanting system akin to Skyrim's with enchantments being learned and replicated at higher power with the right ingredients. This way you could lock certain enchantments' reproducibility behind finding a certain dungeon or achieving a difficult feat. Personally I want the ability to replicate any enchantments at any power to be a reward based on merit rather than pure luck or hours of grinding. Also, I do not want to need to interact with villagers just to get a reliable source of enchants.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I think the implementation of this update in the main game would ruin most of the use of villagers. Not only is Mending a vital enchantment to get on ALL your tools in order to build a big base, but trading halls would become practically nonexistsnt or be rendered useless once you have 5 villagers. Please do not put this in the game, and if you do, PLEASE DO NOT RESET trades for existing villagers on our worlds

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I like nerving villagers and increasing the total level cost for max-enchanted gear but you NEED to remove the level limit on the anvil!

    Why is that limit even a thing? It just actively discourages using the anvil to repair things and doesn't even prevent you from getting max-enchant on everything.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    That is nice idea! "Mending" and "Unbreaking" are needed by everyone, and now it's the challenge to get them. That's cool! (And about "villager abuse". I'm glad to see that it's fixed)

  • 15
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    I think that if there are different trades for the villagers of the different biomes, there should be something within the game that tells the player that jungle/swamp villagers exist. I thing that it could be an structure similar to igloos, and this structure could look different depending on the biome it is located and inside of this structure there could be one or more swamp/jungle villagers (depending on the biome the structure is located) with a (random?) profession.

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    You just created extra hassle for the players, and if a person created a world with a border, and the biome never appeared? And people will still use the villagers, so it's all just useless.
     
     
  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    As others have stated, this is not a good change. The solution here is to not nerf villager trading, but to buff the other systems in obtaining books/enchantments. The anvil XP system should be reworked to make low level enchants useful in the beginning and the end of the game. Things shouldn't get "too expensive" when combining them if villagers are going to hand out lower level enchants. Instead, it should be similar too the enchanting process, where a lot of XP is required to combine items, but it only takes away a small amount of XP away from the player when they do it.

     

    Another Alternative is to make enchanting more fun and also more reliable. There could be an option where at the beginning of the game, you have no idea what enchants you will get, but the more you enchant, the more the player "learns" the language so you can have a better idea of what enchantments you are going to get before applying them to an item. Finally the player becomes proficient and knows exactly what enchantments they will get 100% of the time. Either that or you could add items to the enchantment ritual to get better odds on a certain enchantment.

     

    Additionally, getting books from exploring and killing mobs should be made easier, so players have more options on how they want to find these items. People resort to trading halls because they are so efficient, but buffing other methods increases a variety of play styles.

  • 44
    Registered User commented
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    this shouldn't be a default feature but should be a thing you can turn on in settings when you start the game fore the first time like turning off pillager travels,(in that settings off by default) as this is a sandbox experience and personally i wouldn't like to play with this as it doesn't make it harder it just take more time that i don't want to spend on villages and would much rather spend on better builds. 

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Okay the curing nerf is okay but the biome based trades needs a village for every type of villager for this to work we need a swamp village and jungle village. And the wondering traders changes are nice