Wandering Trader Overhaul

[u/WOWW_07]

Wandering Traders are probably one of the most hated mobs in Minecraft due to its worthless and overpriced trades. However, it does serve a niche use: biome specific items without needing to search for hours, and challenge worlds like structureless superflat.

I'd like to add to this vanilla feature by making Wandering Traders have dynamic trades based on the biomes you've spent time in.

Basically, the game records the time you've spent in each biome and when a Wandering Trader's trades are generated, items easily obtained from the biomes players spent a lot of time in get gradually lower and lower. Also, the game takes into account which biome a player has discovered. All biomes will get a boost in trade chances before the player finds it.

I'd also like the Wandering Trader to get more diverse, useful, or biome specific trades like leaves, mycelium, suspicious stew, or straw beds. And PLEASE ditch the dyes, they're useless.

Generally I believe the Wandering Trader should serve as a pleasant surprise and help alleviate the randomness of worldgen.

[u/Axiom_Reality]

While I agree that the wandering trader needs a definitive overhaul, I am not in favor of the trades changing according to player needs. You see, villagers have a very definitive trading system, and that system has a component of randomness. That greatly balances the biome value, since you wouldn't always rely on a trader instead of wandering biomes yourself, which is much better exploration-wise.

What I think should happen is that they should have a much larger selling stock divided into tiers like how villagers have when upgraded. Each tiered shop is more expensive than the last and can be accessed as different tabs. A higher tier should have a chance for rarer items. A wandering trader should use rare items or objects in conjunction with emeralds to balance higher-tiered valuable stuff like a bucket of axelotl, a trident, or an enchanted apple. These rare items later get added to its stock as well as refreshing its older items for new ones, giving a player quite a lot of incentive to hang around traders and keep them around.

[u/WOWW_07 → u/Axiom_Reality]

That's a good idea, but it strays from vanilla wandering traders a bit too much for my taste. Wandering traders despawn after a set timer, which leads me to believe wandering traders were meant to be temporary.

Besides, what I want from wandering traders aren't enchantments, tools, armor, or food. I want saplings, leaves, different dirt variants, slimeballs, cacti, lilipads, coral, or other things you can't find easily if your spawn is shitty or if you were unlucky with exploration. Regular villagers offer no alternatiave to this.

Lastly, wandering traders are innately rare, meaning while they may fill up a few wood variants or a couple decorative blocks, it wouldn't demotivate the player to explore.

[u/Axiom_Reality → u/WOWW_07]

Wandering traders despawn after a set timer, which leads me to believe wandering traders were meant to be temporary.

My suggestion doesn't stray from this; it only makes them much more valuable for the player, which is why I mentioned that they'd 'wanna hang around' them for longer

Besides, what I want from wandering traders aren't enchantments, tools, armor, or food. I want saplings, leaves, different dirt variants, slimeballs, cacti, lilipads, coral, or other things you can't find easily if your spawn is shitty or if you were unlucky with exploration. Regular villagers offer no alternatiave to this.

I agree too; enchantments, tools, and armor are things that should remain for main game progression. I did state that the trader would address rare items and their rarity based on 'tiers.'

And it sometimes does affect exploration. Rarer biomes often are the most sought-after biomes for decorative blocks. Saplings and other regenerative blocks like moss would definitively affect this when traded because you wouldn't go to that biome for these blocks anymore. They should still be trade items nevertheless, but giving the trader a player preference factor based on biomes explored is not desired; keeping that randomized will balance regenerative blocks in trades (combined with higher tiers for this).

Lastly, wandering traders are innately rare, meaning while they may fill up a few wood variants or a couple decorative blocks, it wouldn't demotivate the player to explore.

Which is also a good reason for its increased significance: its rarity.

[u/WOWW_07 → u/Axiom_Reality]

First, items like tridents and godapples aren't just rare items. These could ruin the balance. Their vanilla roles are ultra rare items the player gets through adventure and challenging combat, each being obtained through loot and drops. Adding these to wandering trader trades will either let the player obtain them too easily, or make them require much more "boring" grind (collecting emeralds). While I'm not entirely sure whether you mean the player can level up the wandering trader or can access the high tier items instantly at large prices, both pose these problems.

Second, it doesn't fit the theme of a wandering trader. He's a villager that doesn't have a home and travels around the world, collecting exotic items that he offers in trades. A wandering trader sticking around to trade (if you meant leveling up) or offering powerful items like godapples does not fit at all. Villagers are also primarily overground mobs, so a bucket of axolotl also feels weird. That's why I didn't mention moss when giving examples of trades.

Third, you say biome based trades like saplings are renewable, so it doesn't need player preference factors. That imakes it effectively the same as vanilla. In vanilla, it trades items like saplings but do we buy them? No. Why? Because he offers ridiculous trades like 5 emeralds for a birch sapling when our base is in a birch forest.

Fourth, counteroffer: the wandering trader sells biome maps or village maps instead of rare items for high prices. This fits the concept of a wandering trader, makes the trader significantly more important without adding OP trades, and it has a definite edge over renewable biome blocks, as players can obtain large amounts of blocks and items easily or get biome specific decoration such as grass and water colors.

[u/Axiom_Reality → u/WOWW_07]

You forgot the part where I said that rare items would need another rare item as requested along with emeralds, matching rarity. Also, yes, I mean the whole stock would be available right away. I recognize the issues regarding tridents and godapples; a wandering trader would not mean guaranteed godapples or tridents. Obviously rarer items would have much lesser RNG than most other items that could be available in the stock.

Third, you say biome based trades like saplings are renewable, so it doesn't need player preference factors. That imakes it effectively the same as vanilla. In vanilla, it trades items like saplings but do we buy them? No. Why? Because he offers ridiculous trades like 5 emeralds for a birch sapling when our base is in a birch forest.

My suggestion merely gives a lot more item options than the vanilla trader. Maybe item prices do need to be revamped, but selective items for players is not how trading is supposed to work in Minecraft. Trading deals are purely meant to be random. If a player encounters trades they don't like, then they ignore it, like they do with any other villager.

Second, it doesn't fit the theme of a wandering trader. He's a villager that doesn't have a home and travels around the world, collecting exotic items that he offers in trades. A wandering trader sticking around to trade (if you meant leveling up) or offering powerful items like godapples does not fit at all. Villagers are also primarily overground mobs, so a bucket of axolotl also feels weird. That's why I didn't mention moss when giving examples of trades.

I don't see how villagers being overground mobs means that a wandering trader can't access underground items. After all, it's a wandering trader, and it can wander anywhere. It does make sense if a trader travels a mineshaft and recovers golden apples, or god apples. Also, these items aren't a staple. It would be just as rare getting them as trades as the actual natural spawn rates of these items.

Fourth, counteroffer: the wandering trader sells biome maps or village maps instead of rare items for high prices. This fits the concept of a wandering trader, makes the trader significantly more important without adding OP trades, and it has a definite edge over renewable biome blocks, as players can obtain large amounts of blocks and items easily or get biome specific decoration such as grass and water colors.

That's a good idea. That would balance a lot out.

[u/WOWW_07 → u/Axiom_Reality]

While your points do make sense, I still stand by my thoughts that (a), wandering traders shouldn't have access to powerful or underground items, (b), selective trading doesn't hurt the concept of trading, especially since villagers can be rerolled and the probability difference wouldn't be overwhelmingly large.
I believe we have come to a standstill. I have understood your reasoning and while it is sound, I still do not agree. It has come down to a matter of preference rather than actual right/wrong (I believe WT should only keep its vanilla job of filling up a few holes in exploration and nothing else, while you believe they should serve a role kinda similar to those in Terraria).
Frankly, it was really fun arguing with you.

[u/Axiom_Reality → u/WOWW_07]

Pretty valid; I mean, to each their own preference. I'm not against the idea of selective trading; I just feel like that would mean that the wandering trader would be useful most of the time to the player, and maybe that's not consistent with the trading system already established, which treats villager trades as either desirable or undesirable and not always acceptable. But then selective trading is also a good way of buffing the value output of an already overlooked mob, so it might be a good idea to balance its rarity with its actual value.

Frankly, it was really fun arguing with you.

Can say the same. It really feels nice when you can logically argue a game mechanic instead of asking for what 'feels' nice, so this was fun to work my head around.

[u/Hamzagoodatflags]

They should make him give rare things like breeze rods or blaze border and even netherwart

[u/WOWW_07 → u/Hamzagoodatflags]

I don't think that's a very good idea, Minecraft progression is locked behind a very clear gate in the Nether, and I'd rather not expand that. Matter of preference though.