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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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  • 2
    Registered User commented
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    Maybe also nerf the trades to get enchanted diamond armour and tools. It makes it too easy to get these items using villagers. Maybe replace them with iron armour and tools but the enchantments on them are better.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I agree with the intention behind the librarian changes, but I wouldn't say I like this option. You would need to make moving villagers a little easier if this is the route you want to take. Right now the AI is not the most cooperative. I would like to see something along these lines: 

    Tomes: 

    The idea behind the smithing template could be reused here:

    • Players have to go out and find tomes (could be a single enchant or a small group)
    • Bring it back to their village and place it on the librarian's lectern
    • Librarian will take a day (or so) to read through and learn the tome before they can offer to sell it

    Upgrades:

    Change it so the librarians upgrade existing enchants:

    • The librarian still needs to roll for a specific enchant
    • can teach you (upgrade) an enchant's level by 1 

    The librarians will then have to learn the ones that are not available through the enchanting table via tomes like above. 

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Hello, first of all, thank you for giving us the opportunity of giving feedback, it means a lot. Right now this librarian change feels like a step backwards, I ask to please reconsider and don't do this for the following reasons:

    1- Villagers are a hassle, they are fragile, moving them around and keeping them safe are the hardest and must un-fun aspects of the game. If these changes go through it will only increase the grind, not the enjoyment of the game.

    2- Biome dependency. In theory it sounds cool, but the reality of having to travel thousands of blocks while dealing with villagers is just not fun. Even with a nether hub this change would be exausting.

    3- Anvil. are the enchantment costs and combining costs going to be addressed?

    The wandering trader changes are pretty cool actually, that I'd like to see implemented.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Librarian: to get good books as of now is "easy" i would confirm that, but to make the enchants biom-specific is a bad choice in my opinion. I would rather say: put the books in 3 categorys and the better a book is the higher up it is - so the books like mending only apear in the 3rd book trade a librarian has(Master Trade (if i remeber correctly)). Would make it a lot harder to get what you want. And pls add costum Icons for each enchanted book.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    Not enough comments about the wandering trader!

    Please make the wandering trader able to buy any item! (I’m thinking like dirt or random mob drops). It would be such a great way to clear junk out of your inventory without simply burning it or letting it despawn. You could make each item worth a bit less the more you sell to him to keep it somewhat balanced (Say at first it’s 16 dirt for one emerald, then after 4 trades it’s 32, then after another 4 it’s a full stack).

    Also add more items for sale, such as lava buckets and the occasional highly enchanted tool or weapon, like random drops he found as he was wandering. I would hope they wouldn’t all have high power items, but it would be a great reason to actually check in with them before you ignore (or kill) them.

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    I like the reasoning but it is bound to create three problems:
    1. With the not-maxed-level enchantment trades we are making the "Too Expensive" problem way more likely to happen.
    2. In order to create a proper trading hall people will need to drag villagers from all around their world, thus wasting a huge amount of time.
    3. With the not-naturally-generating villages in the jungle and swamp biomes, getting their exclusive enchantments (and ESPECIALLY Mending) will be a HUGE pain to deal with.

    The waves and amount of villager-hoarding before implementing this update will be unlike any level of hoarding Minecraft has experienced to this day.

  • 5
    Registered User commented
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    I think it's generally good to make librarians not quite as useful anymore and make the enchanting table more interesting again, but please don't make some librarian trades dependent on the biome!

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I really, REALLY, don't like the changes to the librarians. I do agree that it shouldn't be possible for any random librarian to sell the best enchant in the game, but this isn't the way. I feel things like this shouldn't be biome locked, as in some worlds, you could be forced to travel thousands of blocks just to get unbreaking from your villagers. Personally, I feel like villagers should have some enchants locked to higher levels, such as making treasure enchants (such as mending or frost walker) only available at master.

    I also don't like how you are unable to get high level enchants, (such as efficiency five) from trades, as the anvil system makes it very hard to get maxed out gear without starting with high level books. Also, the enchanting table system makes trying to get a specific high level enchantment nearly impossible without a large amount of time or luck.

    I feel that either enchantments as a whole should be looked at, or just make smaller changes to villagers.

  • 15
    Registered User commented
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    Biome specific enchantments is a very bad change. A better nerf would be to have better enchantments locked behind higher leveled librarians.

    Also if a player feels an optional mechanic is overpowered they have the option to not use it.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I believe this is the single worst change go Minecraft in the 10 years I have played. I won't deny there may be some rework needed for trades, but spreading them out to different biomes and not having max enchant options is the worst way to go about it. Not to mention the super flat/SMP players get absolutely hosed with this change. Also who is upset enough by the balance to completely kill the system? If you don't like it don't use villager trades and let the rest of us continue to have a sandbox game. I can see myself retiring minecraft from game line up with this change.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I agree with the idea of having the Librarians being more balanced and encouraging players to searching for Villagers of different biome types. However, I don't believe the change to reduce the levels of the special enchantments would be right, unless the XP limit of the anvil is raised or completely removed--similar to the duration count for potion effects.

    Moreover, the separation of the enchantment book trades for Librarian Villagers shouldn't force players to travel to different biomes, especially if they're newer players who don't fully understand the system and would most likely struggle to bring Librarian Villagers of different biomes to a certain location, such as a centralized trading hall, not to mention how tedious it would be for ALL players. If players have to travel great distances to bring Villagers from one place to another, the traveling system for bringing them should be improved--AHEM--minecarts.

    Certain enchantments such as Mending, Efficiency, Protection, Sharpness, and Power should be separated by biome since such enchantments (and others not listed) are too powerful to be easily obtained from Librarian Villagers of one biome.

    There really should be Jungle and Swamp Villages by now--or at least some form of Villages to educate players about Jungle and Swamp Villagers.

     

    Anyone whining about the lack of Swift Sneak books should just explore Ancient Cities, as that is partly why they exist.

  • 16
    Registered User commented
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    hate this rebalance no one asked for this grind villager cures takes hours and is worth the reward i think it shouled ber no no and gonbe

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    It's a step in the right direction, however there are some issues:

    • The trades are still wildly variable, but within a limited range. So there's a large chance of a villager offering the same book multiple times, or a level V book for the first trade.
    • There's no reason to build jungle or swamp villages unless you read about it outside the game.
    • The other souces of books are also highly random, and yet more needed now.

    Suggestions:

    • Have the trades a librarian makes scale as they level up. A novice can only offer a level I book, but when they become an apprentice, it becomes a level II, and at expert level IV (scaled for books that don't go to IV).
    • Also, don't sell the same type of enchantment more than once.
    • Always offer a book on the first trade.
    • If the special master-level trade is not going to be top tier, don't sell other books at top tier either, but lower the anvil costs for balance.
    • For enchantment tables and fishing, give us some way to have more control over the results. Something that can be found in the world, applied to the table/rod that biases the results towards a particular enchantment, but gets used up in the process.

    Alternative, no-way you'll do this, but I thought I'd throw it out there:

    • All librarians no longer trade pre-enchanted books, instead they sell "enchantable books". Similar to smithing templates, you can find things in loot that can be combined with such books to make an enchanted book - like an "element of repair" makes a mending book.
  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    I would say that the concept works. However, I think that in practice this turns getting an enchantment such as mending from a game of just getting it - into a game of getting the lowest price.

    If a swamp villager is guaranteed to offer a mending book at level 5, there's no longer any luck involved to get books, the only thing that's stopping you is leveling up the villager. You know you're eventually going to get the book, so I feel like resetting the trades will still have one use: The Price

    Mending will always be sold by a librarian at any even number between 10 and 38. I have actually gotten it as low as 10 in a survival world a few years back by complete chance. The thing is, since it's guaranteed, there's nothing stopping you from re-rolling the trades until you get it as cheap as possible. There are resource packs out there such as the one I use that you can find on bedrocktweaks.net that allow you to see all the trades a villager has without having to trade with them once. Stuff like that already had allowed you to examine all 4 trades for low prices, but now it truly becomes a game of low price rather than just getting your hands on a particular enchantment.

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    Wandering trader buffs are welcome, but what he really needs are unique items to sell, like Terraria's wandering traders.

    The librarian book nerf, while it sounds good on paper, will only frustrate anvil usage further. I like that getting high-end enchants is now harder, but the anvil is the core issue of why we need something like Protection IV immediately in librarians. You need to rework the anvil mechanic, so that players can grind and use Protection I and whatnot. There's also a balance issue, fishing afk now becomes the main OP way of getting good books.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    If biome specific enchantments are the way forward, then I suggest a more intuitive way to transport mobs and villagers other than forcing them in a boat or minecart. Moving villagers is many players' least favorite thing to do in the game, perhaps there's a way to make it fun and make it so that villager trading feels less like slavery?

  • 5
    Registered User commented
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    I am seeing the benefits of this change. It's gonna make it so we have to explore and find what we need rather than just building a huge trading hall. I am curious how we are supposed to get villages in swamps and jungles.

    I am also seeing its gonna cause a lot of people who dont want to go find multiple villages to either play modded only or only play pre 1.20.2 versions.

    I'm ok with the change but make it optional.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I'm actually a fan of this revamp, but of course there are some issues that need attention:
    Some players can't (or don't want to) explore hundreds of new chunks for some villagers. Maybe you could add a way to obtain books and/or villagers from other biomes without actually going there? Or being able to change a villager's biome "type" to a different one through some new mechanic (with a cost, of course). It'd kind of defeat the point of this revamp, but I'm sure there can be some kind of compromise.

    The Wandering Trader changes are amazing, but more selling options would be good. Maybe add more [selling] loot tables so the options are never the same, as well as increasing the number of times you can sell such items (nobody is going to go out of their way to sell one or two potatos for a single emerald). Think about what kind of stuff a player might have in their chests and are willing to sell everytime a WT drops in. Also, a change to the WT's GUI could be good, so buying/selling items aren't mixed.

    I'm excited to see where this whole new villager revamp goes :-)

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I feel like this rework is not really needed. Villagers were pretty OP but there are easier ways to balance this out then making the players go across the world just to get sharpness 3?! This is a good idea, but could be made easier to achieve.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I think this system has it's merits in allowing you to 'focus trade' for specific books and encourage exploration. The issue that I, and I think other players have, is that it feels like a slap in the face to go through the effort of finding a Jungle for example, bringing villagers with you, breeding them, leveling a villager to master just so you can get Unbreaking 2. It makes the already tedious system more tedious, not to mention the fact that it caps you below the maximum level of the enchantment.

    A system that could combine the aspects of what we already have and this proposed changed would be amazing. I think the categorization of 'normal books' available from the get-go and 'special books' that you are guaranteed to get ONLY if you level a villager to master is a good idea.

    I think using a villager's availability to a bed to determine whether or not you 'focus trade' would be nice. Without a bed, a villager randomly picks from the pool of normal books for their novice-expert book trades, then for the master trade a random book from the special books pool is picked; in addition to this, special books would be capped a bit below the max (ex. Unbreaking 2, Protection 3, Fortune 2).

    WITH a bed, villagers would then pay attention to their biome-specific trades and, in order to reward the player's time, would guarantee the master trade be the max level of the enchanted book (ex. Unbreaking 3, Sharpness 5, Protection 4). For Silk Touch and Mending, discounts could be provided.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    It feels like a good idea in theory, but as far as I know it makes it impossible for superflat or sky block and other strict survival challenges to get mending. I really enjoy these challenges and love that it’s still possible to get most items in weird and round about ways, but this change alienates a large community as did the smithing table update requiring diamonds… Maybe keep random rolls an option in the nether or end? Because for some access to other biomes is impossible by design in their worlds.

  • 3
    Registered User commented
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    I think these are some great ideas, as villagers have been way too cheat.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    This feels very unnecessary. The way villagers trade are fine. The changes you are proposing would make take up a massive amount of time and just would not be enjoyable. Biomes can be insanely far away from eachother. Not to come off as mean or anything but, this doesn't really feel like a well thought out idea.. 😔

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    I think changing villager trades is not one of the things to focus on. It’s already kinda intensive to get a villager trading hall, and mostly it’s for the people who play worlds for a long time and need the tools and weapons to be upgraded. It makes it especially hard for hardcore worlds. To have a maxed trading hall, somone would have to make villager breeders in every biome and then transport them which just seems like way too much of a process. Please leave villager trades as they are.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    I like the nerf to curing villagers, but the biome specific trades sounds more like a headache than anything. They can already be a pain to move around, and to get the trades you want. This would make an already incredibly tedious task even more so. Nerfing the curing makes sense, but the rest just seems excessive. I’ve spent hours re-rolling librarians before having to gather them from distant biomes sounds just as bad. Unless there’s a drastically easier way made to transport them.

  • 12
    Registered User commented
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    it's already hard and soooo long having to create an entire hall to get every maxed enchantments and after you build it you rarely even use it so it would just make the starting phase way more annoying that it needs to be just to be useless after hours of work

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    Okay so, if we're going to go through with this change as is, we need to account for restricted worldtypes like superflat and skyblock. The easiest way to account for this as well as fit sensible worldbuilding is to have blocks around where a villager is bred influence the biome the villager is from

    For example, a villager with water sources and lilly pads could get a swamp villager. One with blue or packed ice or snow all around would turn out snowy. If you have a ton of sand, you'd get a desert villager, etc. 

    Alternatively, restricted worlds could be catered to by putting the cursed books in the nether, and mending and frost walker in the End, and creating nether and end skins for the villagers that are bred there. This would still lead to overlap across villagers for "normal" playthroughs, but having more cool looks for villagers can never be a bad thing. 

    Without accounting for restricted worlds and gameplay like this, you pointlessly lock very useful or outright critical end game enchantments off to players of these challenge runs, or, more accurately, lock it behind already difficult to construct fishing farms. I'm not sure if we want people returning to the life of fishing from 1.12, but worse, just to get their end game gear perfected. On the upside, it would massively buff Fishermen, so I suppose that's an upside!

  • 20
    Registered User commented
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    I think by making librarian trades so hard will cause people to stop using them all together rather than search out the biomes. considering that biomes randomly generate this can make some trades unreasonably to get. Right now it’s still not super easy to get trades such as mending and i breaking but easy enough that it doesn’t discourage players from trying

  • 4
    Registered User commented
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    It's kinda good you deciding to nerf the obtaining of the enchantment "Mending"...but was it necessary to do it with ALL the enchantments?
    I'm sure you can find another way for new players to catch up with old players in getting the basic enchantments, but for now I don't like these changes.

  • 0
    Registered User commented
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    When I first heard about this I was very opposed to the idea, but after having some time to think about it I think this is a good change. Knowing for certain which enchantments you're going to get is much better than the current solution of having to reroll until you get what you want, plus it encourages exploration.

    The only suggestions I have are:
    1. Add jungle and swamp villages, so we don't have to bring villagers there ourselves.
    2. Make villagers easier to transport in case people prefer to bring them to a centralised trading hub.
    3. Add an upgrade to the enchantment table that lets you see the full list of enchantments you're going to get (for example by inserting an amethyst shard) This way there's a better alternative to travelling across the world just to get the enchantments you want, plus it makes the enchantment table more useful in the late game.
    4. As many people have already mentioned, remove the anvil level cap so it's still possible to get max enchanted gear.