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Let's talk about Villager Trading! - Cartographer, Armorer (Experimental)

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We're now introducing a second round of changes as part of our Villager Trading rebalancing experiment. The latest rebalances focus on the cartographer, armorer, and structure loot - here's a breakdown of what's changed: 

Cartographer 

  • Cartographers can sell 7 new maps - pointing to a different village or structure and can be used to find seven different biomes. This will help players who want to quickly find a specific location without waiting until they come across it by chance. 
  • Cartographers now sell 7 new maps: Desert Village Maap, Jungle Explorer Map, Plains Village Map, Savanna Map, Snow Village Map, Swamp Explorer Map, and Taiga Explorer Map

Armorer

  • Buying diamond armorer now requires paying a small amount of diamonds as well as emeralds.
  • Most master-level Armorers buy Iron Blocks (and pay very well for them).
  • Chainmail armor is exclusively sold by the secret Jungle and Swamp Armorers.
  • The Savanna armorer sells cursed diamond armor at reduced prices. 
  • The Taiga Armorer can swap one piece of diamond armor for another.

Structure Loot

Certain Enchanted Books now have a high chance of generating in some structures:

  • Ancient Cities: Mending
  • Mineshafts: Efficiency (I to V)
  • Pillager Outpots: Quick Charge (I to III)
  • Desert Temples: Unbreaking (I to III)
  • Jungle Temples: Unbreaking (I to III)

You can read up on the changes in more detail in the latest changelog! Once you've played, please let us know what you think in the comments.

Note that these changes are coming to Bedrock soon!

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  • Official comment
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    Thank you to everyone who has sent in their suggestions and feedback regarding the experimental trade change!  We are trying out these changes to rebalance the villager trade system and make it more fair and fun for everyone. However, these changes are not yet final, and they will stay as experimental features while we continue to work on them. We still need your feedback to help us improve and decide, so please continue to let us know what you think of the new trades, what you like and dislike, and what suggestions you have in this thread!

  • 291
    Registered User commented
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    The villager changes are simply not fun. They make the game a grind, and in some cases (limited world border, flatworld, etc.) certain trades will be impossible. Casual players do not need the current system taken away from them just because enfrancised players know how to use it optimally. Villagers as they are make the game more fun, allow for different playstyles, and do not force you to breed and transport villagers from around the world just to get the trades you want.

  • 200
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    Making diamond armour no longer renewable is a step back in my opinion. I never cared much about diamonds being unrenewable, because they were not needed in large amounts and basically not at all in late game of technical playthroughs. But armour is always needed and there will always be some that breaks or gets lost, so this change adds a constant chore to have to go back to branch-mining over and over again forever. This is exactly the reason why I never use Netherite armour. But downgrading to iron is not a great option.
    There aren't even any alternative ways to get diamonds, only mining (or loot chests, but that takes much longer). Iron at least occurs underground, in various loot chests, drops from golems and zombies, is given by piglins and armour smelts to a little bit of it, so you can choose how you want to play to obtain it. That is not the case for diamonds. In most Skyblock or Superflat playthroughs it is even impossible to obtain them and therefore it would also be impossible to get diamond armour.
    I think the trading change itself could be good, but only if it's accompanied by some way to renewably obtain diamonds.
    I like the cartographer changes and the earlier librarian changes. I have no strong feelings one way or the other for the rest of the villager changes.

  • 146
    Registered User commented
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    How many people are really asking you to change villagers? Remove the stacked zombie trades and make emeralds a bit more difficult to come by and problem solved. Instead just making the game more grindy when it's already a grind is just annoying.

     

    Maybe instead continue to focus on new redstone mechanics, revamping old biomes and dimensions (the end anyone) and introducing stuff people have been asking for, for a long time. Concrete stairs and slabs anyone?

    I really do not understand the focus on this area of the game. Feels very much like one or two people at Mojang have got something into their heads and are determined to press on with regardless of the general consensus.

     

     

  • 109
    Registered User commented
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    I feel like some fundamental changes need to occur first before essentially nerfing villager trades. Especially if we are going to need to move them around. It needs to be easier to transport villagers, bottom line. This isn't really a problem of not having the tools however, as we have minecarts, boats, and of course the option to just push them, but the problem is their behavior. Villagers often run away for no apparent reason, will often go to the wrong spot, or be tied to a work station much farther than the one in front of them despite never visiting it (same goes for beds). We need to fix Villager AI (along with other mobs while we are at it). That way this idea of needed villagers in specific areas doesn't sound so bad anymore. 

    Then I think we should tackle a trading rebalance, which IMO, doesn't really need to happen since as another user stated "Casual players do not need the current system taken away from them just because enfranchised players know how to use it optimally". Especially in a world where Mending is frankly impossibly hard to come by, even with a theoretical loot table adjustment. 

  • 102
    Registered User commented
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    This is getting worse and worse Why you making the game so hard now ?
    There are so many other things to fix .The catograph change is nice but why you shoud buy a diamond armor with extra diamonds if you could get them all in one mine without paying emeralds. Most players will not manage to defeat the ender dragon for this it will only be more difficult and time consuming which reduces the fun factor so you should not spend 5 hours on it getting diamond armor because there's a lot more to discover than a diamond armor

  • 90
    Registered User commented
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    I hate this idea. I play Minecraft to have fun, not to grind. If you want to grind, go play escape from tarkov.

  • 87
    Registered User commented
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    While I really like the addition of the new Maps to different villages the updated Cartographer sells I think that there should also be Explorer Maps leading to rarer Biomes a player might not find so easily like, but not limited to:

    • definetly Mushroom Fields
    • Flower Forest
    • Cherry Grove
    • Ice Spikes
    • maybe even Badlands
    • etc

    Even though these Biomes don't all have special structures I think that these additions would make the Cartographer more interesting to players searching for features like Items, Blocks or Biome properties (no Mob spawning in Mushroom Fields) only rare Biomes provide.

  • 87
    Registered User commented
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    I don't like the separation of trades between villagers in different biomes, because villagers have always been a pain to move around. The changes would make it incredibly difficult to make a good villager trading setup.

  • 79
    Registered User commented
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    I don't see the woodland mansion map listed, are you taking that away? I'm supposed to just stumble upon one of the rarest structures?

    Stop adding grind for no reason. That's not "balance." This makes armorer pretty much useless. Zombie curing isn't worth the effort. Librarians are a massive grind for little reward with the last one. Instead of making trading posts almost a non-option in what is supposed to be a sandbox game, why not add functionality to the parts that are already useless? NOT by making it's alternatives useless.

    At the very least, put the villager hyper-grind behind a toggle in world-gen. I don't have 200 hours free time. Not on easy. This isn't a balance and doesn't make it "harder." just more tedious.

  • 74
    Registered User commented
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    I am going to discuss my thoughts on the villager changes added in the new experimental changes.

    1. New Village Types: Jungle and Swamp. They don't have actual forms, but they probably will soon which will be good if there is new content.

    2. The Enchant Book Change: The villagers were the only way to consistently get the enchant books, and it has been changed so that you must venture to all of the different types of villages. This is a bad change, it doesn't make the game more fun or add new content, it takes the current content and stretches it super thin. It's especially detrimental to smaller servers that need a world border. Provide a new way to consistently get enchants. I do not mind if they are harder to obtain, but it should not be so tedious.

    3. The Diamond Armor Trade: Needing diamonds to get the diamond armor almost makes sense. Almost. Getting diamonds wasn't that hard before the Caves and Cliffs update. But since that update, mining has become much more difficult as open caves mean players immediately get swarmed by large amounts of mobs and die quickly even if you have diamond armor on. So is Diamond Armor really worth the mining trip and dying? What about people who don't enjoy mining? Should they be forced to do it just to get that armor? The villagers solved this problem by having an alternate method of getting Diamond armor. You can make diamonds easier to get, make diamonds more common, and add a new armor that's harder to get, or simply revert this change.

  • 73
    Registered User commented
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    Using villagers is already hard enough. I don't understand why make it even more difficult.

    Your new demands on players are unreasonable. Only a few advanced players who are incredibly patient will be able to meet that demands.

    It's one thing to add a fun element to a journey, and another to add restrictions that make we lose out if we don't go on a journey. I want Minecraft to continue to be a game that everyone can play in different ways.

  • 71
    Registered User commented
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    I quite like the new map changes but the armorer trades. people then might think "Oh so if we need diamonds to get diamond armor from villagers why not just craft the armor ourselves" So i'm sorry but i hate this new villager thing

  • 64
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    No. No. No. Not only is the now officially the "screw superflat" update, but you guys didn't listen. Did the comments with thousand of votes that said "please no" not mean anything to you? Anyway, my last comment was never approved, so here it is: This is an objectively bad change. You wanted to take the random chance out of getting books, but intead added a new one. Now, we have to run around searching for rare biomes, ex: swamp for mending, an enchantment that is necessary for a survival world. Finding biomes takes a LOT longer then refreshing trades. You have made the issue you were trying to fix worse. Why are all of the updates just adding extra, unnecessary steps to progression? You should be adding more things on the end of progression, not making to more grindy to get there.This doesn't make getting enchantments harder, it just makes it take longer. The librarian changes are horrid, and do the opposite of what they're trying to do. The armorer changes are fine, except for the blatant disregard for superflat player. Anyways, that's all. Please don't do this.

  • 62
    Registered User commented
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    Cartographer: Having access to more maps is always nice

    Armourer:

    • The master level purchase is a good addition, give armourers a use to those with resources
    • The Taiga Expert trades are rather unique, though I can't understand the pricing of them, given the difference in "diamond gain/loss"
    • The Enchanting of armour is nice for those enchants that have no levels but for those that do I can't see it being that useful, having the gear enchanted in anyway blocks enchanting table usage so to me it would be a trip to the grindstone. personally feel that all enchants they offer should be one below the enchants max level (if it has levels) e.g. Protection 3, such does not invalidate other methods of getting enchants but makes this method have a good use case which it's really lacking currently

    On that for librarians, really prefer how the Librarian's Balance Datapack did it; Librarians only sell basic enchants, but will sell any enchanted book you can place on their lectern so you actually have to go out and get it yourself first, making mending a challenge than a tedium (The current plan just makes it a different tedium) Such effect could be limited to master level

    The difficulty I see with doing this in vanilla is the communicating this to the player, perhaps on levelling up to master they will place a low level enchanted book on their lectern (assuming one is not already there then just sell a copy of it) and have their master trade be of that book, till a player changes out the book.

  • 62
    Registered User commented
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    Just to add some of these changes are really poorly thought out for long running multiplayer servers that have world borders. The world size is already a major issue that is only resolvable with frequent chunk trimming using 3rd party tools.

     

    Forcing players to explore more favours those that join servers earlier in their lifecycle as well making long term servers less viable without using mods or commands.

     

    On top of that how will this effect long term servers with multiple villager trading halls already in place?

  • 57
    Registered User commented
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    A lot of "stick" seems be being applied with the biome requirement.

    And there's some "carrot" with the more focused options per biome...

    But... the anvil mechanics, and "practically useless due to RNG" enchanting table remain unchanged?

    People use villagers because of the RNG table, and anvil's needing a quantum maths doctorate to use.

    We're still left at the end of the day with players using villagers for enchants, just having to do different busy work to grind them out that isn't as easily interruptible (if you stop halfway through, you're 1000's of blocks from home...)

  • 55
    Registered User commented
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    I think devs are focusing too much on complaints from a minority of content creators who spent lots of hours because it's their job, and ignoring the majority of players who can't afford to spend so much time.

    There are several underlying problems that need to be addressed urgently.

    • I don't know why the prior-work penalty in anvils still exists, it's pretty much the root of all current problems, and instead of removing it, Mending was added as a band-aid. For many people, this made the situation even worse as it made diamonds worthless. However, the real problem is that players are forced to use villager trading and Mending because anvils are broken.
    • The enchanting mechanics need some work. They haven't been touched since lapis was added as a cost, being otherwise identical to its first implementation. Enchanting is flawed, which is another reason why players rely on villagers.

    By making villager trading harder, you're not fixing the problem, you're just adding more band-aids. What's more, by balancing the game around the vocal minority of players who have lots of hours to spend, you're making the game unplayable for those who can't spend enough time on the now tedious trading, because the game without trading is broken.

    Things that should be done for those who can't spend many hours:

    • Remove the prior-work penalty.
    • Improve enchanting.
    • Add swamp and jungle villagers. Moving villagers to those biomes is a pain.
    • Either keep the increased diamond generation, or decrease template costs.
  • 55
    Registered User commented
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    I play alone i don't need 10 sets of armor and 50 picks i usually get maybe 2 sets of armor and 6 picks(some fortune and silk),2shovels,2 swords and 2axes,one hoe for advancement and that is it for me.I usually enchant my gear with ench.table and only buy books for specific reasons like mending or if i dont get it in the enchanter.

    But now if I want mending I would have to go to swamp(I have to find it)than find one with village nearby(or make stacks of rails to transport villagers around)so that I can make swamp villagers to trade me 20 mending books.I have to do this 7 times to get all enchantment books if I have enough resources to make all of the required farms and build them very fast each one would take me at least 40 min to build and than i would have to afk at each one to get villagers to spawn and then wait for them to grow up and get required trades and build a emerald farm to trade with them.I also have to somehow get to all those biomes on foot or with boat or horse because if you already have elytra is easier to just loot end city and get all enchanted gear from there.So if you go through with this changes I would just stop using villagers all together because they are not worth the hours of grinding to get mending just to lose all interest in building or mining.You made diamond more abundant so why not just use the time to mine for diamonds to craft tools and armor and enchant with enchanter and break them and craft new ones when you need it.

    I would rethink it.

  • 52
    Registered User commented
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    I hate the changes to the Villager. I like that you do something about it, but I don't like the start of a Minecraft Session where you need to gather so many Items. Thats why I like Villagers, they make this much easier. I suggest to have a Gamerule where you can choose if you want the villager rebalance. Thanks for your work!

  • 44
    Registered User commented
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    Horrible, leave the villagers as they are. You are not balancing anything, you are making it tedious and boring. Considering stopping playing Minecraft if they make those changes. Awful

  • 41
    Registered User commented
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    Do y'all hate players that play on skyblock or superflat worlds? These changes continue to make those worlds either impossible or horribly tedious, especially the new armorer changes. Seriously, the whole point of their armor trades was as an alternative to going out and mining. Horrible changes yet again, disappointing.

  • 38
    Registered User commented
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    I don't really mind about the biome system, it gives the villagers some complexity they needed. Yet I don't get the new trades, most of the villager gameplay is about making unrenewable stuff renewable, i. e. diamond armor diamond. Diamonts aren't as scarse as they used to, but still not renewable, that's the same reason why I don't duplicate armor trims or why elytras are so valuable, not because the rarity, but because when you need to get more no matter how easy or hard it just keeps needing to explore more, taking everything farther and making the world heavier. I'd rather have to sell multiple different items or making armor more expensive, but not sacrificing a now renewable resource as diamonds.

  • 38
    Registered User commented
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    New maps are great, no strong feeling about Armorer change except who wants curse of binding?

    But all of the changes is based on the Biome-dependent trade idea, which clearly disliked by the community.

    If it won't going away, I would like to see:

    • Easier and faster ways to transport villagers. e.g. Item to lure villagers/ pay them to follow players, Minecarts overhauls including coupling and Boat towage for transporting multiple mobs. So bringing villagers to the Jungle/ to Swamp/ back to main base will be easier.
    • In-game hints (e.g. Achievement) to tell new/casual players two things: 1. Level up certain villagers to master level, just to access unique trades. 2. Build villages in Jungle and Swamp. Because no way they could figure out all of this without hints.
    • Or just scrap the Biome-Dependent trade idea.
  • 36
    Registered User commented
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    But these changes aren't fun. Going from Biome to Biome just to trade will get boring and annoying really quick. And moving Villagers is an awful activity. Maybe having some rare items (Banners, Maps or similar) for swamp/jungle villagers is cool, but not Enchantment, Tools or Armour.
    Also new players will never find this System without using the Wiki.

  • 35
    Registered User commented
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    These changes are just going to make using villagers even more difficult.

    1. The reason why people use villagers for diamond armor is because it's renewable, and now it is not.

    2. The Savanna's armorer will likely be rarely used since you can't remove the curse to get a clean slate like the enchantments and it's pretty rare that people actually use the curses.

    3. This still hasn't addressed that max level books would not longer be possible to get from villagers. It gets expensive fast to enchant armor/tools, and there is a 40 level limit to using an anvil to combine enchantments. Those two rules cannot coexist. Having the highest enchantment levels appear more frequently in structures is not going to cut it on larger servers where there's not enough to go around.

    4. This also hasn't addressed people's concerns about moving villagers. Players do not want to have to jump between biomes to trade for a few materials, nor do they want to have to move villagers hundreds of blocks instead of setting up one villager trading center.

    This is not a rebalancing. This is not more fun and fair to everyone. This is making the game more difficult because a few people exploit the system and then some others who have a louder voice than the rest of the community voice their own opinion. I do like the new maps and I've loved many of the recent changes to the game, but this isn't it. I want to be able to keep my playstyle to much more casual and not be forced to play a more "challenging" method.

  • 34
    Registered User commented
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    Cartographer: Really nice way to balance out biome-specific trades

Librarian: I like the idea of the extra challenge in getting all books, but it should be possible to actually get all books, at all levels. It just doesn't makes sense that Master-tier trades aren't max level.

Armourer: Again, the idea of different types of trades in different biomes is nice, but I think the enchantments are quite lacking. Also, about the fact that diamonds are required... I get that diamonds should be still useful, but Armour Trims/Upgrade Templates is enough. Requiring diamonds to get diamond armour from villagers defeats the whole point of getting diamond armour from villagers. What I suggest is buffing the enchantments slightly (including the ability to get multiple) and getting rid of diamonds from the trade in one of the biomes, but instead the armour has weak or no enchantments.
  • 33
    Registered User commented
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    I think jungle and swamp villages need to be added. There's currently no in-game hints that villagers can reproduce or that villagers born in new biomes will take on that biome's features. Moving villagers is a difficult task especially over long distances.

  • 33
    Registered User commented
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    I think the villager changes are a bad idea. Most players including me have adapted to the "old" villagers, because they stayed the same since 1.14, so changing them will confuse and anger many people, because we got used to the old trading system. Just imagine the old trading system as a birthday present that you really like. Now imagine the guy that gave you the gift (Mojang) tearing it out of your hands and replacing it with a way smaller gift which is still good, but not as good as the other one. Thats how I and many other casual players feel if you implemented these changes like that. And I am talking about both the librarian and armorsmith changes. The cartographer changes are actually not that bad. I really like them. They would give them a purpose... other than turning all your paper into emeralds after a few zombifications, but even then the librarian is better suited for that... But speaking of zombifications, don't change them. I always thought the price getting lower with each zombification rather than just decreasing once was a feature, not a bug. Why don't you just pull out your magic wand and turn that bug into a feature like you always do when a bug is loved by the community? Anyways, I have written way too much about this topic, I hope you get my point. Don't touch my villagers and goodbye.

  • 33
    Registered User commented
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    This is straight up just...  BAD. I do NOT like the nerfs at all.
    As if the Netherite Upgrade needing Diamonds wasn't enough, now Diamond Armour isn't renewable.
    If I'm going to mine Diamonds anyway, I might as well just mine a few more to get the whole set. Why in the world would I travel millions of blocks away into different Biomes just to get a full set of Armour?
    Besides, now the Enchanting Table gives off better enchants than the new Librarians. The "rebalancing" is just making the villagers utterly useless. At least to me, that is.

    P.S. The villager maps thingy is kinda cool tho ngl. BUT THE REST OF IT IS JUST BAD.