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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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  • 3
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    Armorer:
    1) The iron stuff is too expensive. So my idea would be:
    You get boots for 1 Emerald, but with only 25% durability left
    With 2 emeralds you get one with 50%, with 3 75% and with 4 one with full durability
    Same with helmet (here you would have to may at least 2 emeralds) and the others.

    2) Purchased shields have random banner pattern on them

    3) The expert trades should have at least level 2 enchantments. The whole effort for e.g.
    unbreaking 1 iron boots is way too high

    Other ideas:
    - Piglins should barter a nether explorer map for bastions or fortresses
    - There should be a very rare chance that a e.g. plains zombie villager spawns in a taiga biome. That would give zombie villagers a much more important role in the game.

  • 3
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    An idea you could do is have different biome trades (including some basic ones such as, the fletchers stick trade costs more sticks in a forest biome where they are easy to get and less in a dessert) giving slightly different prices gives more rewards to having villages in different biomes. making trade systems between biomes letting you get better prices. Also, the enchantments should be better for the armorer especially with the librarian not giving you any higher end enchantments easily. I really like what you're doing making it possibly to have a better player to player economy in multiplayer. On the topic of wandering traders, they should travel between villages that are naturally spawned making them more predictable. ;)

  • 1
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    Really like the balancing of the villagers howerver i think that there should be a more practical way to transport villagers. I think that villagers should be able to ride on camels, horses, donkeys and mules because boats are impractical on land and minecarts are to expensive for early game. I also think that saddles should be tradeble by a leatherworker as it would make sense and make ridable entities more usefull in early game. Also there should be Villages in Swamps and Jungles as it doesn't feel intuitive to breed villagers in a specific biome just to bring them back to your base later. Apart from that it would be nice to have some more variety in Villages. Also you could add Villages in Other Biomes such as Mushroom Fields, Badlands, Cherry Groves or maby even Lush Caves.

  • 33
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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.

  • 5
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    There is some good to some of the changes but amourer is one I don't like big time. Tell diamonds grow on trees maybe 😂. But how the game is currently It just makes it more grinding heavy then it already is . I do like the cartographer changes 100% . I still feel that mending must not be a biome specific trade but a master level only trade with 10 emeralds and a diamond or 3 with a book .

  • 18
    Registered User commented
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    Without a faster way of early game transportation this sounds like hell

  • 16
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    Cartographer changes are cool. More useful and that’s awesome. Armorer changes, simply put, suck. I enjoy playing flat worlds, and sky block and even one block worlds, but now with these changes diamond armor becomes impossible to get since I have no access to diamonds. If a villager traded diamonds, even if it was for a crazy amount of emeralds, I would be fine with this. But why nerf a chunk of the community so hard by adding this requirement? If diamonds could be obtained a different way, from another trade or something, this would be fine, but unless that gets added, the armorer changes absolutely suck. Also, prices are garbage, should be 1 diamond for boots, 2 for helmet, 3 for pants and 4 for chest plate. 3 diamonds plus emeralds for boots makes it pretty much pointless.

  • 35
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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.

  • 20
    Registered User commented
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    These cartographer/armorer changes still do nothing for addressing the issues prior changes would cause with Superflat, large biome, single biome or limited world boarder worlds/servers.

    In fact it punishes those play styles further, especially with the changes to savanna villagers.

    If these changes get finalized, I think they should remain as an experimental opt-in feature     going forward. Rather than an opt out /gamerule

  • 3
    Registered User commented
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    Really dig cartographer changes. Finding biomes is too random and tedious. Having specific maps is great.

    I understand having an issue with enchantments/ armor as it exists in the meta but the reason players use the single system they do is because the enchanting table is effectively useless as a long term solution, and the anvil limits make getting decent armor/ weapons that way impossible anyway. It’s those systems which need a rework more than librarians. It players want to grind it out let them.

    That said, I love the idea of biome specific trades & guaranteed book. “Go grab a map and explore!” is great when combined with better structure loot. My only gripe is the situation where your traveling 6k blocks to find an ancient city or swamp. And I don’t wanna have to go 4k blocks where my reward is Sharpness 2…

    It may also be interesting and I’ve talked to other players about this to have the ability to “craft” enchanted books using materials as consumables (sort of like potion making). With higher level enchants cost additional and/ or rarer resources or a leveling system akin to how villagers get to master.

    Overall, this iteration of villager changes is much better that the previous.

  • 3
    Registered User commented
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    As of September 5, 2023, I consider these changes to be very positive for the game and, frankly, necessary. However, I do have a few suggestions:

    1- The villages, in my personal opinion, are too common. It has happened to me many times to go on a path of 800 blocks and find between 2 to 3 villages. Call it luck, but I think that the rate of appearance of the villages should be slightly lower, especially with the implementation of these 7 new locator maps.

    2- The maps need DIFFERENT textures. The maps cannot be differentiated from each other. Please, it is a simple job to do.

    3- Don't stop now, the villagers need to continue to be modified. Please don't stop and settle now. It would be great if you could add unique and exclusive items to the villagers (for example). That can't be obtained anywhere else in the game. Enchantments are great, but something special is needed. Wandering Trader included.

    Thank you very much for your continued work!

  • 9
    Registered User commented
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    I do enjoy the new map trades and will us cartographers more now with this change. I do not like most of the changes to armorer (and previously, enchantment trades). I like the varying enchantments and chainmail vs iron armor, but I despise the loss of renewable diamond armor. I play a lot of skyblock, because I find it very fun to create something from nothing. I also think that important enchantments to player QoL (mainly stuff that reduces grinding: mending, unbreaking, fortune, and looting) should not be locked to specific locations. I would maybe accept these as a gamerule. As it stands now though, I am strongly opposed.

  • 28
    Registered User commented
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    this is completely the wrong way to go... 
    all you do is force players to explore and play a game the way you think is best, 
    the reason why games have been so popular for several years is that players can choose what they want can do in the game but now after what been add with villager and trade change it's gone, 
    something other games out there can't do it even if they say it's a sandbox game,
    but it won't be a sandbox game anymore.

    can only say thank's for making such a dear and loved game for so many years, 
    to something I won't touch after 1.20.0... will be my last weeks on that game before I remove and never play again..

  • 3
    Registered User commented
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    Absolutely love the change concept! Defenitely feel villagers are just too easy to get god armour out of the gate, also love the idea of making exploring more rewarding (if you use villagers there is no value in the enchanted books from fishing/exploring).

    I do think that for this update to work needs an anvil fix, as if we are meant to combine books with armour various times the anvil limit will make it basically impossible to get god armour. As simple as removing the "too expensive" limit and letting the player pay the xp but keep reparing/combining their tools/armour, this also gives a benefit to saving up many levels or getting a good xp farm (relatively advanced things that are defenitely not early game easy to build, or at least ones that could easily let a player get to 50+ levels).

    I also think that this update will need an easier way to transport villagers, maybe not necesarily the "villagers follow you when you hold emeralds like sheep" as this would be to easy, but maybe make an item or minecart type/sadle/something that makes villagers want to get on minecarts. This could make moving villagers alot less frustrating to move (the item could be traded with some villager type -leatherworker? - or found in mineshafts for example) and also give making rail lines a new reason, as now with elytras you really have no reason to make a long rail line.

     

    These are my thoughts! Absolutely love the added challenge! (even though on my current survival world ima stock tf up ;P)

  • 2
    Registered User commented
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    I think all of the changes are almost perfect, but would really benefit from swamp villages, I think a Village Update 2.0 would be a decent option for 1.21 but that's not really relevant, I think (hope) 1.21 is a Combat Update v2, it is incredibly needed and has been since 1.9 yes that version was an improvement to PvE but a horrible detriment to PvP, we need a new complete overhaul of combat that take inspiration from Jeb's previous combat snapshot's because those were really good.

  • 3
    Registered User commented
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    Based off watching a new player use armorers to get kitted out super quick, I can see why there needs to be a rebalance here, though I think it needs tweaking to assist newer players.

    I don't quite see why the Savannah needs to have SO MUCH curse of binding on all the pieces. Why not fire protection 1? Feels quite trolly, for the players that enjoy setting up their base in a Savannah village, only to find out their armorers suck.

    I still do not agree with the design decision to make Swamp / Jungle villages be the "hidden" easter egg villages. Or at least, not without some sort of guidance to guide the player there naturally. Perhaps, advancements to trade with them?

    Also, advancements to teach you how to breed villagers? Maybe you just have to be in the general vicinity of villagers breeding, then the advancement reads "Breed two villagers by having ____ happen"

    Cartographer trades look great! I think this should be expanded on to other ideas - perhaps guiding the player to a Mushroom Island, Warm Ocean, or Cherry Grove. In practice its not always easy to find these locations, and I always find myself wanting to cheat to find these places sometimes, as they're often thousands of blocks away. Would be nice to just have in-game guidance towards those biomes.

    Generally speaking, this is a step in a great direction for game balance, I would just like more "new player" guidance to help them understand these changes, such that they don't have to look it up.

  • 15
    Registered User commented
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    I feel like you’re focusing on the wrong problem. Can librarian villager trading be too powerful? Sure, but still requires a lot of time and effort as is. This proposed change feels like a step backwards without the inclusion of an improved enchantment table that guarantees certain enchants at a specific level and the removal of the ridiculous “Too Expensive” option. If a player would rather grind 300 levels to repair their sword vs bringing villagers to a swamp villager to obtain mending, then let them.

  • 29
    Registered User commented
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    I really hate these changes.

  • 21
    Registered User commented
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    Setting up a trading hall is already more than enough of a grind, and the idea having to travel thousands of blocks to find the right villager biome for specific enchants is enough to (literally) make me never want to start a new world. The game becomes nearly unplayable on console (I play on PS5 primarily) when the world size gets bigger than 1GB. I get the idea of incentivizing travel, but come on guys - don't make the grindy aspects of your game even grindier. It's not fun. 

  • 4
    Registered User commented
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    I most of the changes overall, giving a less random way to find certain biomes is great and the changes to the armorer's trade look like a well made nerf. However, this still does not solve the major issue with villagers, tedium. Looking up what biome you need for a particular trade is not skill based, and creating 7 trading halls in 7 different locations 2 of which will not even have villagers to start with is just the same thing 7 times over. This problem is made even worse if some of the biomes are very far away or you want to make a central trading hall, as you would have to move villagers over long distances. Changing one tedious thing for another tedious thing is still a tedious thing.

    What if instead of the trade type being based on where the villager was born, it is instead based on the type of material used to make the trading station? For instance oak wood could be used for plains trades whereas acai could be used for savannah trades. This way, the player still has to go out and find various biomes, exploring their world, but they do not have to transport villagers across it, and the biome-trade connection is maintained. I also think this could be nice for builders, as it would give them more block types to work with. My favorite application for this is Librarians, since it makes their lecterns kind off like wands, with the type of magic they can do dependent on what tools they use.

    Thank you for listening to community feedback, overall I like where this is going.

     

  • 12
    Registered User commented
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    I do like the Cartographer changes, but the rest of the proposed changes are going to be frustrating to me.  I like to build, but I want the challenges of survival as well.  I don't want trying to get the best enchantments and gear to make building easier to be more of a grind than it already is.  For large scale building things like mending, efficiency, silk touch, unbreaking, and fortune are indispensable.  It would be one thing if the enchanting table system was more robust where you could pick enchantments and not have to keep putting in unenchanted items into it and pray to the gods of RNG that you'll get something decent.  But without an upgrade to that system, the change to villagers doesn't feel good to me at all. 

    That said, it feels like some of this is being done to also encourage exploring.  I feel like the better way to do that is to add more of what has been added of late.  Different structures, more types of ruins, more features to archeology, and more armor trims would be fantastic.  I've been exploring the world more and more since those were added in and it's been a ton of fun.  

    Another idea would be to create a new ore, maybe something found in the End, that doesn't improve tools.  Instead it improves the enchanting properties of tools.  Maybe they can be pushed past the current max levels, or maybe they can hold more enchants, or maybe different, more powerful enchants. That would be a lot of fun to work with too. 

  • 24
    Registered User commented
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    Why are you forcing players to create villages in the game for desired trades?

    These "experimental" changes seem like the developers are simply trying to add time to game play.

    I have never once in the current game desired Jungle or Swamp villagers due to the need to transport and breed villagers to a new location that often times is far out of the normal area of play I have chosen.

    But these changes would force me to step up to the horrible experience of villager transit. This is not an exciting and glorious game play experience.

    Players for years and years have been asking for other quality of game play changes the devs seem to ignore.
    I have never once heard a player complain that villagers needed another change.

    Current villager use is predictable with a bit of randomness thrown in that makes the player interested in villager mechanics sit down and invest many hours into breeding and trading.
    Your proposed changes will vastly increase that amount of time needed to acquire desired enchantments for no add benefits to game play other than time.

    The only thing worse than these proposed changes....would be using the enchantment table.
    That thing sucks.

  • 8
    Registered User commented
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    Armorers only selling certain pieces of diamond armor depending on their biome is far too much. The trades are already balanced to now require diamonds, as well as only have level 1 enchantments. Including a trading path to diamonds, something like several emerald / iron blocks for a diamond should be introduced to allow players on single-biome worlds to acquire diamonds for trades.

  • 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!

  • 8
    Registered User commented
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    With this whole rebalancing going on, you're going to make a lot of people unhappy with the changes while making others happy with them. I think the best way to implement ANY of these changes would be to make them a game rule or world generation option that you can toggle before you start a new world, much like you can with fire tick or keep inventory. This way, those that want these new changes can have them, and those that don't want them don't have to be forced into them.

  • 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.

  • 55
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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.

  • 11
    Registered User commented
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     I love the idea to be able to buy more maps however all the armor trade updates I find a useless and unnecessary, as well adding curses to villager armor is a very unwelcome change that should not be implemented. Villagers do not need another update, other aspect of the game should be focused first, examples include the end and, that cool (portal frame?) that was added in the deep dark but doesn't do anything

  • 23
    Registered User commented
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    Please DO NOT make the enchanting book rework, for casual players like me it's terrible, especially because of the swamp and jungle (non)Villages requirement, Casuals do not make a "Villager farm" like hardcores, I know this is intended to be a new challenge for Hardcore players but it will only make the gap between play styles too big. This means you only be able to feel safe or rightly equipped if you are a hardcore player. I`ve never made a Village transportation system in this game, and i DON`T  WANT TO NEED to make one. I truly hope that my comment get to be viewed by the dev`s the game is changing, i know, but the changes should be good to all of us 

  • 14
    Registered User commented
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    While the new maps are a step in the right direction, this doesn't make villagers easier to move, or deal with the issue of anvil's having a cap. It makes getting higher gear nigh impossible for casual players and feels like a linear story is being pushed in a game that's meant to be a sand box.

    Having diamonds be part of the armor trade makes it impossible for players on superflat to have a renewable source of diamond gear, same with players who are on limited world border worlds, or single biome worlds.

    It would be best if these changes were kept optional, because it feels like trying to correct a problem that wasn't really there, and not everyone wants these new changes.

    If you want players to explore, make something for them to get excited to find, not nerf villagers to force them to explore. Very few people like being told how to play a sandbox game, and this feels like telling players how to play a sandbox game.

    It would be easier if jungle and swamp villages formed, as that would get rid of the annoyance of trying to move villagers there. That just leaves the anvil cap. Upping or removing it would be best.