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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 have no interest in these changes as they do not add to the game but instead take up resources that could be better used to add content.
    There are a variety of different types of players in Minecraft and a change like this a few people may enjoy, but most will probably find this aggravating and will simply be more effort to enjoy a game that had no need of this new convoluted way to gey something we already had. If it aint broke dont fix it. The resources used for this change could be better used to add to the game instead of taking away from it.
    You would probably be surprised how many people when they heard about these changes simply groaned or even decided "Im not going through that shit again" when faced with the prospect of having to deal with villagers again, and PUT DOWN THE GAME.
    No one is going to stop playing if you dont change the villagers, because no one asked for it to be more difficult. If you do make changes, you will inevitability lose players. This results in no gain with possible loss of players and resources.
    People have requested more variety of blocks, slabs, glass cutters, various other things to add to our builds. I am unsure why these requests are ignored and instead we get time wasted on things changes to systems to make the game more difficult. Mojang is quickly becoming the fun police, changing things to make the game less enjoyable. Dont do this. Add, dont subtract.

  • 0
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    having buff villagers doesn't seem that op to me. this new update to make players explore feels forced. the only thing is like is that the villagers arent able to trade the max enchant like efficiency 5.

  • 1
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    those changes to the villager trading will not encourage one to explore, but it takes away all the fun. when im going to explore i dont want to have to worry about how do i get the enchants to actually go on an exploration trip, i want a stable source of enchanted books before i head out of my base in my favorite biome. traveling thousands and thousands of blocks i see doable only by using the top of the nether. also the xp levels required to merge those books in the enchanting table is way too high, with this change it will also be harder to merge the books before you hit the too expensive mark. overall this change doesn't seem to be rewarding towards players, especially the ones that prefer one biome to build and not to explore all around. Large biome worlds are gonna be even harder to manage the gameplay as you'll need thousands and thousands of blocks of traveling to actually find the proper biome, not to mention the ones that will have villages in them and the ones that will require the player to transport the villager there to get the enchants they seek. Traveling hasn't been made easier in any way since the rails have been implemented, and transporting villagers that way is tedious. 

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    I think its important to break down each type of change for the librarians:

    Master level exclusive trades

    The fact that currently we can get top-tier enchantments just from breaking and placing a lectern down is massively over-powered and needs to change. Locking certain trades behind a master trader is a great change.

    Biome dependant trades

    I like the concept, you can work your way to get a specific enchantment without relying 100% on RNG. However, by itself its a bad change because we still rely 100% on RNG to find biomes.

    This needs to come with either a way to find specific biomes OR a way to create artificial biomes.

    Max level III books

    Removing enchantment levels IV and V from the trading pool feels unnecessary. If this is to be kept, the anvil penalty for combining books needs to be greatly reduced or removed. I think it would be better to make novice trades limited to enchantments I or II. As they grow, the trades are replaced by lvl III to V.

    Removing certain enchaments from trading pool

    Also feels unnecessary, but its undertandable. Could open way for new villager types tough.

  • 0
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    The Biome dependent trades will promote more interaction on servers, in that the player will need to travel to different places, likely where other players have set up shop/base in various biomes. The centralized shops are too much like shopping malls. More player interaction and opportunity to showcase your builds is a much welcome opportunity. Having played a server recently which did not utilize the centralized shopping center, I found this to be very inspiring. By visiting others bases I was introduced to different concepts and ideas there by expanding my own pallet and toolbox for my own builds. Villagers have been over powered for too long, much like AFK fishing for enchantments was. Maybe link this to choosing hard mode and leave easy mode and normal mode alone, thereby a compromise for those who like it easy vs those who look forward to the greater challenge. Just a thought.

  • 13
    Registered User commented
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    These special max enchantments aren’t even max level

  • 0
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    I want to say that this update is terrible. Now many books will be almost impossible to get. You will also need to make your villages in the swamp and jungle. And with new updates, they are not so easy to find. I hate updates like this.

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    I like these changes, including the separation into different biomes. It encourages exploring, setting up builds in different areas of the world and infrastructure to get there, and once you get your swamp/jungle villagers you could even build your own custom villages in these areas for them to live in. This introduces and incentivises multiple new project ideas to do in someone's world which makes for many more hours of Minecraft fun. I agree with the sentiment that villagers should be easier to move (follow while holding emeralds or can ride on camels/llamas) and maybe easier to protect aside from just building massive walls or locking them in tiny rooms (I prefer free range villagers).

  • 0
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    Wandering trader should exchange items for other items insted of emeralds. with this you have to explore the world to and get rare items in exchange of others, for example. if you want a cherry sappling you need to give the wandering trader a mangrove propagule. you want a fish? give him another type of fish.

  • 0
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    I think this change is a step in the wrong direction. There should be a clear path to obtaining maxed out gear in game, and having that be villagers (how it is right now) is not ideal, but simply ruining them does not solve the issue. If I want a Sharpness 5, Sweeping Edge 3, Looting 3, Knockback 2, Fire Aspect 2, Unbreaking 3, Mending sword, I should be able to create one if I have adequate resources using an enchanting table and an anvil alone. At the very least, there should be a way to set myself up for quick gear replacement in a late game situation.

  • 28
    Registered User commented
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    I don't like this change. Please don't touch any villager.

     

    Focus of making the game not laggy and buggy.

    Don't make things worse! 

     

    Don't do it.

    Don't ruin this amazing game.

    Don't make this huge mistake!

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I like the general Idea as villager trading is broken as of right now. Removing books for something like tridents seems very counter intuitive. Some of the better books only selling as level 3 can be a good idea but I would be careful when balancing this for swords as they usually can carry lots of enchantments. So if you have to start with sharpness 3, the combination cost could get too high.

    Some of the books being restricted to villager types that don't have their own village type(jungle, swamp) might also prevent newer players from getting access to these books.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I’m fine with this change and I think it would be a good change to Minecraft. But you need to up the level or remove the too expensive from the Anvil. Because the villagers won’t be max level and you have to combine books, you need to up the level to counter act that.

  • 4
    Registered User commented
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    If so, the mechanism of the anvil has been changed.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I think this change changes everything too radically, even in order to get the necessary spells from the inhabitants it takes a lot of time and resources, now it will also be necessary to create *villages* in different places or search (which is not very convenient for mobility), and most importantly, how to drag residents to the desired territory, even if this is not done very conveniently

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    How would a player who doesn't check update logs or the wiki know about this change? Why would they consider building a village in a biome that doesn't generate them to get enchantments? I think villages having their own loot tables for Librarian sales is good but villages should either start generating in Jungles and Swamps (which I would expect given all the recently added building blocks related to those biomes, like bamboo, mangrove and mud), or should not get exclusive valuable enchantments. 

  • 0
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    The biome specific enchantments are sound really annoying to get and are impossible to know unless you have a list of where they are which makes it almost impossible for newer players to get the enchantments.

  • 1
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    My problem with the changes is the lack of balance with the other mechanics. For example removing the ability to get certain enchanted books with villager trading only leaves the enchanting table, but that's still random to get the actual enchantment that you want (in book form at least) as some players like to stock on books to have available, maybe the enchanting table can get influenced to favor some enchantements when surrounded by certain blocks (ocean related blocks, target blocks, ores, etc).

    I don't like the biome specific enchantments because it feels too restrictive, maybe it could be better to influence the enchantments the villager offers based on some sort of interaction with them with items, potions or just a new mechanic that helps with that.

    Finally the max level of the special book offered by the villager can lead to "Too expensive" on the anvil if the books and the tool/armor are not combined in a specific order, after all the XP cost increases every time you combine an item, and that order is not intuitive. If changes to the anvil were made maybe that wouldn't be so bad.

  • 20
    Registered User commented
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    Terrible please don't keep it like this I play on superflat I would not be able to get most of these and some times I play on one biome

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I believe that if Villager Trading is going to be made more challenging then the Anvil should be re-balanced so adding enchantments never becomes "Too Expensive".

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    At first i really like these new ideas, the only problem i see is the biombased libarian trades, because it will just change that everybody will go every time he plays in a new world to the same biom, propably swamp( everybody wants mending), and in the end, it is boring to always be in the same biome. But I really like the rest and this is a very good snapshot. <3

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I agree that villager trading is overpowered and tedious. I'm fine with nerfing emerald costs, increasing the need to cure, and even locking valuable trades like mending behind master. But the biome thing? Really? I recently spent a lot of time looking at seeds for a new map for my SMP. It is incredibly hard to find a seed that has a good assortment of biomes within a reasonable distance of spawn. A ton of seeds were eliminated purely because the nearest desert was so far away, and this is a problem for swamps and jungles as well.

    Even if the distance thing is solved, and villagers are made easier to transport so we can still have the classic trading halls instead of scattered trading outposts, exploring should be something that is done because the player WANTS to do it. It shouldn't be forced for basic progression. If you lock progression behind exploring, players will do it to progress, but will resent the crap out of it. It turns it into a chore or a box that has to be checked.(I now HAVE to find a swamp, even if I don't want to.)

    And of course, none of that even touches on the fact that this is crazy unintuitive. I can't imagine that a casual player who doesn't watch Minecraft creators will somehow randomly build a villager breeder in a swamp and stumble into getting a mending book. Like...what? That's going to happen maybe twice across the entire user base. Come on...

    I agree with your goals. But this is not the way.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Honestly, when I heard about this yesterday it put me in such a bad mood. This is possibly one of the worst updates you've done in a long time. I love trading and cycling through the different books to get what I want. This ruins that. This isn't balancing at all. How do villager trading farms/halls work? If you can only get certain books in certain biomes? It's honestly so bad. I certainly won't be playing survival again if they actually implement this change. If you want it balanced, keep everything as it is, but decrease the likelihood that those special books will actually pop up. So if it's currently a 10% chance you get mending in the first slot, make it 5% or something. That seems more like balancing to me. But do not release this to the public as it is in experimental. It's awful. 

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    this generates whole new problems and just extends playtime and makes the game more grindy. people won’t want to work for these enchantments anymore, and some won’t even be able to (e.g superflat, biome specific worlds). I see the balance change you are going for but it would be way better to do it based on the villagers level rather than biome.

  • 1
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    i can't see players on SSP worlds to benefit from it, if anything it would take away the interest in playing..here's why: certain blocks, like deepslate, obsidian, are already hard to break with the highest tier enchantment, with that change, it would be even more punishing. one wouldn't want to go into the nether and travel severe  hundrets or thousand blocks to find the biome to get, lets say, the mending book. there wouldn't be any advancement at all for the player, or rather, advancing in gameplay would take longer and be harder, which again would take away the interest and fun. 

  • 0
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    This has got to be one of the stupidest updates. Wasn't this game intended for kids to start with? Where has that gone? I'm an adult. I love the game but im not gonna go out and adventure that far. Thats a nuisance. Its already a nuisance breeding the villagers and waiting. Then you have to move them all into their spots. Then try to get the trades you want. I'd rather grind that in a safe space than dying 10 times cuz I have to go thousands of blocks to get the books I need and not even at max enchant. I'm not willing to go thousands of blocks to get certain enchantments. Also going out that far lags the game so bad. All the farms in bedrock are crap compared to Java. The iron farms, creeper farms, etc. What yall should be working on is letting bedrock having a higher mob cap for creepers and better iron farms. Not making the game more grinding. I wanna play minecraft to relax and have fun without doing creative. If I want to grind a game, I'll go back to Warframe. Also, kids are gonna get bored with all this grinding, they'll move onto a new game fast. It's already hard enough to get enough supplies to even zombify/cure villagers. Instead of making the game harder, make more to the end or the portal in the ancient city. Don't mess up villagers. A lot of people I know will stop playing. 🤷🏽‍♀️

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Horrible change IMO.
    However if you want to stick with it, there needs to be way less tedium involved. Going to every different biome, including the rare ones just to level up a Librarian and transport him back for a trading hall is frustrating. Also to promote the use of Enchanting Tables: For the love of God fix the XP system. Levels getting harder to get makes sense when the enemies scale to your abilities and needs (i.e. being harder to kill but rewarding more xp) but Minecraft doesn't have that. Instead you have to seek out a rare structure and spend a lot of time to build an efficient farm, or sit at a farm for regular mobs that reward the same trinkle of xp for every kill until you reach what you need. Make it linear please.

  • 11
    Registered User commented
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    I dont think locking enchantments behind biomes is the play, it seems extremely intuitive based on almost everything else in the game.  Loot being biome dependent is only currently in fishing if i'm not mistaken.  And all other structures that are multi-biome all have the same loot table across them.

    It would make more sense to tie it to/revamp the reputation system that already exists in villages.  The higher your reputation is, the higher chance librarians will offer higher end enchantments and higher rank.  You may need to add something to the game that lets players get an idea of what their reputation is if you go this route.

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    I don't feel Villagers are the core flaw that needs to be addressed.
    In my opinion the problem is Experience, Experience Levels and Enchanting which are random and not rewarding.

    The current problems:
     -  Expending levels to enchant doesn't make a lot of sense, and losing levels on death is very too harsh for their purpose.
     - You need more XP for each level but that level contributes exactly the same to an enchantment or an anvil repair/rename.
     - XP levels don't mean anything. You can have played for 3000 hours in a server and die and be level 0, and it doesn't feel fun or rewarding.

    Possible Solutions:
     - An idea would be to make the level something permanent as you play the game, and make it a requirement for certain enchantments. It would make levels actually mean something, and you could make them much harder to get. 
       Example: you need level 30 to start getting mending in the enchanting table, and that could be much harder to achieve, but then its permanent and you have access to it forever. Then, you either need to expend some item or currency to actually craft the enchantment, OR you could use the XP bar to be some kind of magic bar that you build up by gaining experience, and then use it to enchant. You could even need a balancing act of "Should i spend the XP i have on an enchant, or level up and start building my XP again and enchant later."

    If nothing else, please just flatten the XP levels for enchanting and add some purpose to leveling up.

  • 4
    Registered User commented
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    This is a very good change but maybe alongside villager rebalancing there could be a buff to enchanting to make it more viable or have specific enchants only be obtained in certain structures ocean monument for tridents, bastions for crossbows, Woodland mansions for swords, ext.