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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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  • 0
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    My God, yes! Finally, the developers have taken up the residents, it's just hard to believe that they have made such serious steps, thank you🥂

  • 1
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    I like the overall direction of these changes, however they feel too brutal to me. Finding all seven different village types is definitely going to be a tedious process, however I believe it could work if the following conditions are met:

    A. Reasonable alternatives to villager trading need to exist. Increasing the odds of finding enchanted books is a great step in the right direction, however I think it should be more than just four books. I also believe that anvils must be changed to be a more reasonable alternative to Mending. Remove the "too expensive" limit and drastically reduce the penalty for repairing a tool multiple times and mending will no longer feel like a necessary enchantment for early game players, while still providing plenty of value for late game players.

    B. There should be a reasonable reward for putting in the increased effort for trading. If you have to find a jungle, build a village in that jungle, and level up one of the villagers to master level in order to get an Unbreaking trade, the reward should be Unbreaking III, not Unbreaking II. If you have to find at least two villages in order to trade for a full suit of diamond armor, the "diamond discount" should be more than just 50%. I think 1-3 diamonds per armor piece is a more reasonable price for the amount of effort involved.

    In short, I believe more alternatives to villager trading and better rewards for those that do put in the effort would lead to a much more balanced system for everyone.

  • 2
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    While I agree the villagers are a bit op, they are fun to use. Making it mopre tedious is not a good idea imo.

    I find the armorer changes annoying, because instead of being incentivised to explore the world, you're forced to. As for the librairian, if this change is to happen, then the enchanting sytstem should be reworked, because as it stood, the enchanting system was just pure, boring grind and the villagers were the only good option. Now even that isn't the case. I think this whole thing can be summed up by ''If it's not broken, why fix it?' The villagers shouldn't be nerfed to force us to : a) explore (give us something new in each biome) and b) use the enchanting system (just make it better and people will use it)

  • 18
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    I think this is very bad.

  • 1
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    When playing Minecraft, players are encouraged to forge their own playstyle/path of progression based on their interests/fun. The previous tedium and power of librarian cycling, zombie curing and armorers was I think unbalanced and induced uniformity. To both benefit players who enjoy villagers and those who would rather use separate systems to achieve progression, I think an overhaul was greatly needed. 

    - Enchantments - Librarians were both the overwhelmingly best way to get specific enchants, though a tedious method at that. While I really enjoy the concept of biome unique trades I fear this will do little to reduce tedium while making in near impossible to reliably find many desirable enchants. The design technology used for Soul Speed & Swift Sneak is a perfect partial solution here. By mapping certain enchantments to specific structures, it grants those who don't want to engage with villagers an alternative way to reliably find needed enchants. This prerelease seems to have begun adopting this approach and I couldn't be happier to see it. Additionally quality of life changes could be of great use to outdated systems such as the enchantment table/anvils. I would also consider granting librarians the ability to trade enchanted books that are on their lecterns. This still ensures players must put work into their progression to at least acquire one copy of an enchantment while reducing monotony in the long term. Biome exclusive trades could still supply value in this method.

  • 0
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    НАКОНЕЦ ТО, СВЕРШИЛОСЬ ЧУДО

  • 4
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    Whether these changes are balanced or not should not be your first priority. The priority should be whether it’s fun or not. Like others have said, these changes just aren’t fun for the player. Making a mechanic more tedious does not improve the game, even if it means it’s more balanced.

    This is the first time since beta 1.8 that I’ve dreaded the new update coming out. No one would be upset if you just scrapped this idea and put your time in effort into adding new, fun features and mechanics rather than changing parts of the game that people love.

  • 1
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    Toward moving villagers:
    * Please port leashing boats to Java.
    * Add support for getting villagers to ride llamas and camels. Llamas in particular because of their follow behavior, a game mechanic that is underutilized. I imagine prepping terrain for a long caravan (bridging rivers and rifts, etc), then getting four or five villagers on llamas to caravan to a new settlement.

    In terms of villager dismount, treat them more like a bed than a boat: one click and the mounted villager dismounts instead opening the trade window.

  • 3
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    I fundamentally disagree with most of the changes coming to villagers. Diamond armour is now barely worth obtaining through villagers. The whole point of trading with an armourer for me was a challenging but rewarding and renewable way of obtaining armour. Not only is it barely a better use of time and resources, now worlds that don't have diamonds in them are just completely locked out of diamond armour, unless they want to make a mob farm and go through the very tedious process of spending days un-aliving mobs to grab a couple pieces of diamond armour. Creating more specific books in structures doesn't fix the librarian problem either. Librarians and other villagers are still frustrating to transport for specific trades. Players whose worlds are limited by biomes in some way will still not be able to access certain books entirely or without great difficulty. Players who can't afford to use several gigabytes to explore farther in their world are going to resort to villagers regardless, because it's necessary one way or another.

    I understand the idea of wanting to make trading more fair and fun, but most of these changes have indirectly or directly made things a little more fair in some ways, but much less fun entirely.

    (P.S. In relation to limited worlds, a lava bucket trade on the wandering trader would go a long way for players who wish to obtain cobblestone and stone related items, additionally making it renewable.)

  • 1
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    I'm not happy with these changes unless there is an easier way to transport and breed villagers. Especially the transport, moving villagers is currently one of the most painful thing in minecraft and if I have to set up long and elaborate transport system for villager then I won't bother wasting my time with villagers. This makes setting up villager trading so grindy with little reward and that's simply not fun.

  • 2
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    I like that cartographers are now able to sell village maps to villages in other biomes. This is definitely an improvement, but the problem of transporting villagers still remains. It's incredibly tedious and having to visit specific biomes doesn't help.

    In the case of the armorer, I really don't like what they've done. Making the diamond armor trades cost diamonds kind of defeats the purpose of the armorer. They're meant to be an easier way of getting something that isn't renewable otherwise, but now that it costs diamonds, that idea has been thrown out the window. Now you'll still be required to spend hours mining for the diamonds you need to get a full set of armor.

    For the librarian, I think everything is mostly fine except for the fact that they never sell max level enchantments at master level. This is a big problem considering that the combining system in the anvil is utter garbage and needs to be fixed.

    And finally, BRING BACK DISCOUNT STACKING.

  • 0
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    I like it

  • 0
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    Librarian (since other post is closed): missing are trident enchantments. Extrapolating on the proposed, if a villager becomes a librarian in a ocean ruins or ocean monument, include trident enchantments in the set. This is in addition to the set defined by where they are born, from which the RNG makes a selection, so that there is a decent but not guaranteed chance of getting such a book. This challenges the player to clear out the water and guardians before bringing the villager.

  • 2
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    I didn't like the trade change.
    It just makes you grind. Yes, we will have to explore the world, but....it's not interesting. Every day I have to overcome several hundred thousand blocks, I have enough travel and sometimes I just want to sit quietly in the house, and not run several thousand blocks for books. I would also rather spend my time designing/building another house rather than walking between villages.
    And perhaps this would not be such a problem if it were convenient to transport villagers. But unfortunately, villagers are constantly running and escaping. They are difficult to put on a boat to be transported to a new place.
    And how to transport them on the ground? Or a trolley or a boat, but neither is convenient. Why should I build a railway for several thousand blocks for the sake of one book?
    "It's good that you build it, since you have to get the books the hard way"
    Yes, I will spend a few stacks of iron and sticks on the railroad. But why do I need this railway then? I won’t use it, it’s just a waste of resources that I could spend on my project

  • 3
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    Mo' Diamonds Mo' Problems

    The major issue, as others have mentioned, relates to diamonds. In the current iteration of the game diamonds are un-farmable, but if you are willing to put in the time and work you can use armorers to at least eliminate the primary demand source (Armor). In this paradigm diamond mining is required for special blocks, but it isn't actively required by technical players in the late game solely to be able to have basics like tools and armor. These players represent a very small minority of players. MC is not a competition, balance should not be target top players' play styles but rather all play styles.

     

    By removing renewable diamond armor/tools, players of all skills levels will now be required to consistently grind for a constantly required resource. What this means practically is players spending more time digging 2x1 holes for diamond rather than pursuing their areas of interest.  The "discounts" on the armor are irrelevant. They could discount down to 1 diamond per piece; the issue would be the same.

     

    Additionally, what was the purpose of adding Netherite - a rare exploration-only armor - if diamonds are now being transformed into the same thing? It seems there is a perception that diamond is late-game only when in reality it is required for fighting even mid-game enemies (Enderman).

     

    The changes relating to splitting up the trades between different villages is more promising, but I think this will depend a lot on implementation (what trades are where).

  • 2
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    My main concern with the Armorer is that, with the current combinations, you will need to have Villagers from THREE different biomes to have trades for a full set of Diamond armour. I understand wanting biome-specific trades that reward players for exploring, but I don't think we should be forced into that style of play, travelling potentially thousands of blocks, or transporting Villagers thousands of blocks from multiple places, just to get cheaper Diamond gear, that isn't even renewable any more.

    I would suggest keeping the Enchantments on the armour biome dependent as unique rewards for exploring, and probably make them better than Level 1 Enchantments to make it actually worthwhile. Then, make it so Master level Armorers sell ALL armour pieces, or at least two random ones of the four, so you aren't forced to have Armorers in three different biomes for the full set.

    The aim shouldn't be to force a particular style of play, rather to make multiple playstyles viable. I do worry that these nerfs are a step too far and will make most Villagers completely unviable and not worthwhile. They will just have the effect of discouraging using Villagers at all, rather than giving people the option to have either one central trading hall, or exploring for the unique trades. I do also think the Diamond cost should just be a nominal 1 Diamond per armour piece, with the price variation just coming from the Emerald cost, if the point is just to make them not completely renewable.

  • 15
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    Makes villagers basically worthless and the game much less fun to play. Sad...

  • 14
    Registered User commented
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    The only news you get about mc these days are just nerfs...

  • 8
    Registered User commented
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    new mechanics are good, but villagers are something that shouldn’t be changed. the fact that they changed the traveling merchant is good, the fact that they changed the other villagers is not that bad, it’s not convenient, it’s very inconvenient...

  • 4
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    It's one thing to encourage exploring, but forcing players to do so isn't a good thing. There are tons of legit reasons not to expand your worlds, especially with certain devices or bugs that won't allow you

  • 10
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    Why would anyone get cursed items? Way to ruin the armorer

  • 6
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    Stop "solving" problems nobody has!

  • 0
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    Generally, this is one of the best solutions to villager abuse you could have created while promoting the exploration part of the game. Really love how now you can trade for maps of different biomes because before that sometimes the only solution for finding some rare biomes was to cheat with seed maps. 

    But,

    • enchantments on master villagers are really underpowered
    • there should be at least 4 maps in one biome because it will not be fun to travel through 3 villages to find a jungle or swamp biome. 
    • prices need to be balanced, but you probably already know that
    • next minor update should be focused on traveling rebalance
  • 13
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    You know, games are supposed to be fun. Keep nerfing stuff and eventually people will stop playing

  • 0
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    Really absurd seeing all the comments about "villager transportation", while none of them will actually acknowledge, that you absolutely do not need to be transporting every one of them, most likely around 2-3 villagers from different biomes. Saying that the game will just become grindier, while today's Minecraft really suffers because most of the gameplay could be passed through villager grinding.

  • 1
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    - Cartographers - I think these are great additions. Anything that adds additional utility to existing systems is a plus in my book. Additional resources would also be really cool to help players find rare biomes such as the Cherry Grove or structures like the Ancient Cities. This may not necessarily be in the form of villager trades though. One of the many things I love about this game is how the developers find creative ways to differentiate systems that have similar purposes with different mechanics.

    - Armorers - I actually quite like a few of the changes here. I think it is fair that some diamonds be required for the armor trade. However, having heard complaints recently in regards to the scarcity of diamonds I would perhaps invest in better ways to come across them. I would say that previously armorers made this acquisition far to quick to make. Additionally I really enjoy the new iron/diamond block trades. I think these are great rewards for late-game villager play and shows a matured understanding of the value recourses relative to each other on Mojang's part. I must say however that not allowing for a full set of diamond armor to be produced in one biome seems needlessly tedious to me and does not fit thematically within the bounds of presumed in world culture like the enchanted books might. Do certain tribes just not know how to make boots out of diamonds even though they can out of iron? Lastly I recommend changing the Curse of Binding to a Curse of Vanishing.

  • 4
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    Idk with every update I keep thinking " oh no, I have to get done X before they remove the feature". Get netherite before the template, craft strings from cobwebs, set up a ton of villagers for trading, use zombie curing... why would I want to play if it requires me constant work to keep minimizing nerf impacts?

  • 1
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    Bumping a interesting idea from a previous post:
    Enchanting improvement: Allow players to collect enchanted books that can be placed in chiseled bookshelves that permit players to choose those enchantments in the enchanting table.

  • 4
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    Cartographer:

    Glad to see that it is finally getting some attention! It and the leather worker felt really underwhelming compared to the other villagers. The new map icons are also a nice touch. I hope to see more villagers get a rework.

    Armorer:

    The few biome-specific differences are great and makes it more worth it to have villages in different biomes. The diamond armor trades have been too good for a while now and I believe it should've been more expensive - adding diamonds to the trade works but it does make diamond armor non-renewable. I don't know if Mojang considers challenges like Superflat and Skyblock, but it would make diamond armor, a staple of the game, impossible to get here. Just something to note. I do like that if you have a Taiga Armorer and another Armorer, you can swap out boots or a helmet to effectively save 1 diamond on a chestplate or leggings.

    Structure Loot:

    I like that enchanted books can be found from structures as it encourages exploration more but I would recommend an exploration update that makes looting structures more dynamic because looting the same structures over and over for a set of enchanted books will get stale really fast. Any way to make looting the same structure different every time would make this a fun way of getting enchants. Either that or having librarians trade books you've already found. I've seen this suggested before and it would be easier to implement.

     

     

  • 7
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    You keep saying you want to listen to player feedback. Look through the comments and basically know it's content by just looking at the votes: the vast majority hates these changes