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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 love the idea of the biome specific villagers, but since all top tier gear would be on second book trade, they should remain chance of getting max tier.

    I also think other villagers should still have chance of producing max tier diamond equipment, perhaps just at a lower chance. No need to nerf these entirely.

  • 0
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    I believe this is not a welcome change for most of the community, as this would make an already pretty mundane task even more grindy and annoying. If this gets added to the game, the first thing I would do is mod it so I wouldn't have to deal with this and I think a lot of people would agree.

  • 1
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    I really dont think that trading is as op as people make it out to be. It takes a lot of effort to get the villagers, get the trades you want and the emeralds you need. While i do like the idea of having master librarians sell certain enchantments. Having them locked to certain biomes and then not even having the max enchant lvl will be to much work for what you are getting.

    Maybe instead of nerving villagers its better to buff or rework some of the other ways to get enchantments. Maybe have enchanted books that spawn in structures give out certain enchantments more quikly, or make structers that are harder to deal with give out higher level enchantments.
    And with the enchantment table its might be nice to take a way some of the randomness from it. This way people dont just have to hope to get the enchantment that they want or spent multiple tools to get it. 

  • 1
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    I mean, the idea is cool and encourages some actual village building, but for most people it would be just a hassle to build cheesy villagers halls in all the biomes.

    I like the additions for wandering trader. I found to use him as a xp source to repair my mending tools when I'm not around the village I developed, so he's not useless in his current state.

    I play the game as a purist, like it was 'intended' to be played, basically I don't reroll any villagers, don't build any cheesy (mob) farms. I get what I get and I need to adapt to the situation. I must say, with this playstyle, game feels really well balanced, even mending doesn't feel broken broken.

    The easiest way to fix these thing would be for the players themselves to put limitations on their gameplay and just don't abuse the systems and just enjoy the game as it was designed, but this obviously won't happen.

    My opinion about how to solve the librarians problem is and for the longest time was, don't give them books on the first trade tier, or alternatively, make every villager have predetermined set of trades for every profession, so rerolling doesn't change anything.

     

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I like the change but it should be a gamerule that can be toggled off for the more casual players.

    'LimitedBookTrades'

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Hi! Here are my thoughts on the experimental librarian changes. In my opinion, the new changes aren't great. I do agree that villager trading is OP but i would prefer maybe changing the prices instead of make us go to different biomes to get different trades. I like the idea of changing the levels of the enchantments like instead of librarians selling Efficiency 5 the sell Efficiency 3. I think it would be to big of a hassle to go 20,000 blocks to the nearest jungle just to get Protection 4. Maybe librarians wont sell books until higher villager levels instead of selling them at novice. I think the Minecraft team is doing great and I love the new Trails and Tales update. Keep up the great work and thanks for everything!

  • 1
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    "A better way to have desirable books be more reproducible would be for librarians to act as duplicators. Make the best books discoverable in ignored things like jungle temples and other sites, then sell these books to a Master level villager along with copious amounts of lapis or other item to receive two of that spellbook in return. Similar to the trims, still requires at least one player to explore for spells, and uses a small amount of resource management."

    This is the most reasonable balance to give villagers that I have seen anyone suggest. It makes it fun and not tedious and gives late game players something to spend the copious amounts of resources we have gathered on rather than sitting around in chests unused. It also doesn't make losing your stuff and regearing back up worse than it is now. Make different books cost different resources to duplicate as well.

  • 0
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    Wandering Trader changes are really good. Glad to see that we can supply them with travel goods as well, as it helps players engage with their trades prior to mountains or villages.

    Librarian changes seem like a step in a good direction, but this change will not do much good standalone. By itself, all it does is raise the tedium of unlocking those trades, and further pushes the player to suffer work penalty when enchanting their equipment. If this goes forward, please update the Anvil as well. As of now, it is never worth it to repair items on the Anvil due to the ever-increasing cost and eventual "Too expensive!" limitation, which pushes players to use Mending instead.

    If you want to add an incentive to rebuild Jungle and Swamp villages, please add ruined forms of such villages to these biomes. For example: you could add suspicious gravel with items related to their culture, and increase the spawn rates of Zombie Villagers in them. This way, a casual or uninformed player can see that a village could be formed there, instead of relying on out-of-game information to do so. Otherwise, very few players will even know such villages are possible, let alone know about the trades unique to them.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    If it were as it is then, it's a no, folks.

    Maybe, if you still want it to be way it is, make the biome-specific trades just be more-likely trades, with this every possible trade is still obtainable just that a certain few are more common than others.

  • 1
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    I must say that I don't like the changes to the regular villagers, but the changes to the wandering trader sound like more people will get excited to see one appear and may see them as a useful mob rather than a free pair of leads, my vote is to keep the wandering trader changes and return the villager changes to what they were before, as i think that getting enchanted books like mending, are decently balanced if you take into account the fact that villagers are frustrating to transport, contain, and re-roll trades, and the curing is also a decent challenge as well, and sometimes I don't even partake in villager trading for my enchanted gear, not to mention the fact that trying to get different villager types over to a central location is incredibly difficult as well, so I say remove the villager changes, have a good day Mojang!

  • 0
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    I think an easy way to make both sides happy is to add a gamerule/option toggle such as "Balanced Villager Trades" which players can turn on or off either before creating a world (similar to the bonus chest) or after creation using the gamerule command (the ladder seems harder to implement though). Other ideas such as gamerules that allow the player to choose a specific number of times that villagers can be cured could work as well. Mainly the first idea, a toggle before creating the world, seems the most practical.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Great change in my oppinion. Enhances the exploration aspect of the game in the search for vilagers and structures, while making vilager trades less overpowered. I even believe wandering traders should'nt sell saplings at all, perhaps only wood, so players must look out for new biomes for saplings

  • 1
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    If the idea is to have players build villages in different biomes, then I find that concept good overall, but there are some issues:

     

    1. Transporting villagers is far too difficult, especially in biomes that have no villages, such as swamps and jungles. One solution for this issue would be to give villagers the ability to move into player-constructed villages.

     

    2. If villagers can only sell books up to a certain level, anvils will see a lot more use. This change makes it far more difficult for players to create an item with all the enchantments they want without seeing the "Too expensive" text. I think the simplest solution is to remove the "Too Expensive" feature on anvils, as XP already limits how much a player can enchant.

     

    3. If some enchantments are removed from villager trades, there should be alternate ways to get them. For example, we can still get fishing enchantments by fishing. This should apply to tridents and crossbows as well. To go along with this, the enchantment table feels like it's currently too built around RNG, where players can only hope to get the enchantment they need. This should also be addressed. 

     

    4. On the topic of the wandering trader, it would be nice to have some overall consistency. In my opinion, the wandering trader should have set times they can spawn (eg once per in-game week) and the player should be able to use a block or item to choose where they set up shop, so the wandering trader doesn't spawn in awkward locations such as underground.

  • 0
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    Really like the Wandering Trader changes, two thumbs up for that! Adjusting the prices is great and I hope this is a sign that other villagers' trades are also being looked at. (*cough* One diamond for one emerald *cough*)


    I like the concept behind biome-specific trades for librarians and making them more predictable. I like that you can't keep on zombifying them to get huge discounts.  Maybe there could be other ways villagers would give discounts, for example if they were free to move around more and weren't permanently stuck inn little cubicles.


    I do think that every Librarian should have a chance to sell any book. Maybe this could be handled by having each Librarian have a 50% chance of selling one of their biome's common books, and a 50% chance of selling a random book of any type.


    I'm not convinced that limiting Master Librarians from having the top level enchantment of their specialty is a good idea. Trading enough to get them to that level doesn't tempt me. This gets especially bad if the level cost of combining books doesn't get lowered. At that level, trading for enchantment books is something you will rarely do at all, which was probably not the intent.


    Hoping for some more village types!

  • 1
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    As others have said. I lie the changes to curing villagers and the wandering trader, but splitting Librarian trades across biomes doesn't seem like the right move. I like the idea of splitting the books into sets but having to go to a new biome for each set seems tedious and time consuming, especially with how awkward it is to move villagers around. Maybe making it so that there's a lectern block for each type of wood, and the type of wood the lectern is made from changes it's librarian's trades could work? That way you're still promoting players go explore the world but they don't have to bring a villager along for the ride.

  • 1
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    Funnily enough, not everyone is a YouTuber with the time to spend on getting the same stuff as before. Now, for people with less time(eg busy with work), it is nearly impossible to A, get materials for large bases and B, if you do, will take hours more for the same result before even starting too build. Things like slime farms will be too much of a pain to dig. Overall, a terrible decision and will make lots of players stop playing, including myself.

  • 0
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    There was a quote on the reddit that said something along the lines of "Some players think Librarians are too powerful..." etc

    Who? Who felt this way? Literally nobody. 

    Ok, so this is already the grindiest part of the game. You just got diamond gear and now need max enchants before upgrading to netherite. This requires many things. A maxed enchanting table, which also needs a cow and sugarcane farm, an extensive villager setup, which needs fletchers, a tree farm, librarians, a safe spot to store them all, and the willingness to haul villagers from halfway across the world to you base. Then you have to do it all, which requires luck, a very potent XP farm, multiple anvils. Is this grind fun? No, but it's necessary, and we all do it.

    Now, let's make it more grindy. On top of having to level villagers to Master and do all the gear applying shenanigans (which is most of the grind), let's add the fact that you have to haul villagers to every corner of the world just to get the books you need. "Mending was too easily obtained before" Maybe that's a good thing. Combine it with everything else, there's no reason to make this already incredibly tedious part of the game even more tedious without doing something else to balance, like making enchanting tables actually good (having a re-roll system that doesn't involve wooden swords, maybe). Or, heck, just don't do it. It's not going to make the game more fun and while it seems like a good idea, let me tell you–it's not.

  • 0
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    Most of the changes seem fair, but the Biom dependency is just annoying. Maybe add different Banner designs for each biome type or something other for lategame. But at the beginning of a world, I want good tools pretty soon.

  • 1
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    This is the most irritating short sighted thing I have ever encountered. Do villagers need balancing? Yes! But this is not the way to go about it. Moving villagers is one of the most tedious things in the game, and now we’ll need to move villagers to 2 biomes that don’t even spawn villages. Furthermore, the anvil xp scaling means that by the time you’ve combined low level books you won’t be able to actually enchant anything because it will be “too expensive”. Just because some people felt this was too easy doesn’t mean that we should have to go to ridiculous lengths to get enchantments. Even with villagers it’s truly not quick to enchant things, and only being able to get some enchantments from some villagers and just trying to get lucky with loot chests that rarely have enchanted books anyway is going to be so tedious. Casual players will suffer, new players will suffer, and old players like myself will suffer because most people hate the grinding this will cause. This needs to be rethought in so many different ways because this isn’t balance, this is tipping the scales the other way.

  • 10
    Registered User commented
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    I think its a bit too tedious, you can make it that mending and prot and all of those good ones are more rare and are only for higher level librarians but thats also a bit tedious.
    i think a good idea is just to make rarer enchanted books harder to trade by needing higher level librarians and lower level books ( II instead of III ) 

  • 26
    Registered User commented
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    This makes villagers not balanced that makes villagers to useless npcs no one needs anymore if bulding an enderman farm and enchant next to it is less painful and faster now with better entchantments...

    If you want to bring this worst change in years then make it a gamerule and not force everyone to make their villagers useless.

  • 1
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    A villager rebalance is needed but this isnt it. This concept is so underbaked and doesnt take into account other game mechanics.

    Biome specific master trades is a decent idea although the drawback is the tedium of dealing with moving villagers as is. Having to build villages and move villagers over long distances will just be even more tedious than it already is. Master trades not giving the Max value of the enchantment makes them worthless (unbreaking 2, protection 3) because of the dated anvil mechanics.

    Needing to set up more villages will negatively impact SMPs especially those with minimal plugins for a vanilla like experience as Villagers are extremely degrading on the server performance that servers already set limits to help combat the lag of the Villagers. Having to set up more villages is not the solution.

    Do not implement this half-baked idea, it needs far more refinement and/or a rework of other game mechanics along with it such as the enchanting system and anvil system overall.

  • 0
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    I don't enjoy lootbox enchanting, whether that's leveling a villager to discover if their enchantment is "good" or trying my luck enchanting books/tools hoping I get lucky before my XP runs out.
    The proposed biome based changes just make rolling for loot more tedious. Please include some method for players to trade effort and game knowledge for a known enchanting result, in the same way that finding an end portal or crafting a potion doesn't depend on luck. Whether that's villager trading or some other enchantment source that could replace a "villager hall", that's something many players want and will put effort into. If it's not meant to be possible to build, fine, make it impossible, not aggravating and time consuming.

  • 33
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    I do not like this change because I feel like it is a bit harsh. I think that going to each biome to get the villagers needed for some enchantments will be a lot of work that just takes time away from the fun.

  • 1
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    I personally do not like this change, the concept and logic itself is sound and reasonable, but speaking from a PvP standpoint it will be very annoying to get villagers from all those specific biomes, then level them all the way up to max and have to buy a ton of books. Example: in order to get full prot 4 you now need to buy 8 books instead of the normal 4, and for sharp 5 you need to buy 4 instead of 1 which is just really annoying. It will also cause a lot more instances of armour and weapons being "Too Expensive" to enchant.

  • 0
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    Since I feel one of the big concerns with this change will be the availability and accessibility of Mending, I'll put this from the perspective of a mid-game player trying to get Mending and upgrade their gear:

    "...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...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 skillful, while also revealing some clues about their history of each village type through the enchantments that are sold there."

    In reality, this was an ideal situation. Mending is not available from the enchanting table, and can only be found from villager trades or structure loot before defeating the ender dragon and exploring end cities. I'd much rather spend a few minutes breaking and replacing a lectern than hours looking for the book in a structure.

    The last sentence is especially striking. Under the new rules, certain enchantments would only be available in certain biomes, including those where villages don't naturally generate. How can a player-built village in those biomes have "history?" Their history is that I built the village because I wanted Mending.

    This change will not make villager trading "interesting and skillful." It will only make it tedious and time-consuming.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    The Wandering Trader changes are fine.

    The Librarian changes are bad. The idea of tying trades to different biomes is interesting, but the changes—as they currently stand—remove several Enchantments from Villager trading altogether, and offer lower levels of the Enchantments they do offer.

    You're right that nobody particularly enjoys trading with Villagers to get their Enchantments, but that is only a problem because despite nobody liking it, they still like it MORE than using the Enchanting Table. Trading doesn't need this nerf; Enchanting needs a buff, specifically in the form of meaningful choice in which Enchantments I get.

    Top-shelf tools are a regarded as basic necessity at endgame and postgame levels of play, and getting them has always been grindy and unpleasant. I'm sure that's not how Enchantments were originally envisioned, but that ship sailed 10+ years ago. And despite the unpleasantness of working with Villagers, at least they offer long-term solutions to this problem instead of continually re-rolling the dice until I get the Enchantments I need.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    We don’t want this. The recent change that makes biomes spawn in a more realistic way will mean that villagers will take forever to locate and transport. If you think it’s OP and want to make changes, ask for suggestions or come up with something else. This isn’t it.

  • 1
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    Adding even more, people who felt that the villager trades were too easy DIDN’T NEED to use them. If some one wants to grind for books the way it is, they can. But people who don’t want to do that can use villagers. There are still good enchantments you need to search for. Why should we all be forced to comply to some players standards of too easy? Like, I’m sorry you think we shouldn’t be having fun? I’m sorry you think we need to suffer more to deserve having fun in a game? This entire thing is ridiculous, and even just making a small amount of the better enchantments only available from wandering traders or loot chest would be much better than this, even if I still wouldn’t like it. Instead of the most ridiculous overhaul ever, if this is really an actual problem, just take some books and make the villagers unable to trade them. Make more books work like swift sneak or soul speed, but not as specific locations since they aren’t as good. Anything would be better than this absolute madness. Making this change doesn’t incentivize people to explore, making things more and more difficult doesn’t actually make people want to go find things. There is a balance between the effort and reward people receive and this completely steamrolls it. There are video essays about how minecraft has problems with this. Hundreds of them! This doesn’t make people want to go find villages and explore and figure out how to move villagers, this makes people upset, irritated, and bored. 

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Personally, I would have liked to able to give books to librarians to "teach" them the enchantments. They could also have some biome specific enchantments on top of that too. Additionally, it would be nice to be able to have them "research" those enchantments so they can offer better level. For example upgrade from fortune 1 to fortune 2.
    Similar logic could also be applied to some of the other villager types.

    New villages are needed for those biome specific villagers that currently don't have a village.
    Perhaps it would also be nice to improve the enchantment table logic and have it only taking into account chiseled bookshelves and not the normal ones. Like this, it could somehow draw runes from the books placed in them, which could be used to increase chances to get specific enchantments in some way.