revolvea
New member
- Joined
- Dec 26, 2025
- Messages
- 2
- Thread Author
- #1
Redesigning the Weakest — and Literally Only — Side Mechanic in DBO: Crafting
Crafting is probably the weakest side system in DBO, and considering it's basically the game's only real side profession, that's kind of a problem.
For anyone unfamiliar with how it currently works, the basic loop is:
Get equipment → disassemble equipment → receive crafting materials → combine materials into other materials/items → craft.
DBO has three main generic crafting materials — Manufacturing Extract, Special Parts, and Rare Mineral — with multiple tiers. Manufacturing Extract and Special Parts are used across crafting, while Rare Mineral is primarily used for weapons. Equipment level determines the tier of materials you get from disassembly.
You then use the Hoi-Poi Mix machine to turn those materials into other materials or equipment. Crafting gives EXP, and recipes are gated by your crafting level.
The problem is that this makes crafting feel less like crafting and more like turning equipment into crafting currency.
And that's what I'd change.
---
The Big Changes
The basic idea would be:
Mobs / World → Raw Materials → Refinement → Components → Finished Item
instead of:
Equipment → Disassembly → Generic Materials → Hoi-Poi Mix → Finished Item
The Hoi-Poi Mix system can still exist. The problem isn't the Hoi-Poi machine itself; it's what we're putting into it.
---
1. Mobs Should Actually Drop Crafting Materials
The biggest change would be making crafting materials actual drops from the world.
Mobs would primarily drop unrefined, first-stage materials, such as:
- Steel Scraps
- Leather Pelts
- Rubber
- Wood
- Cloth
- Ores
- Monster materials
- Various regional materials
Different enemies and areas could have different material tables.
So instead of killing a monster and hoping it drops equipment that you can then destroy for some generic Manufacturing Extract, you're actually collecting things that make sense as crafting resources.
This also gives the world more of a relationship with crafting.
A particular area could be known for certain metals. Another could provide particular plants or woods. Machines could drop mechanical components. Porunga Rocks could have completely different materials from Earth.
And this would make specialized recipes possible without having to invent increasingly ridiculous versions of "Manufacturing Extract Lv. 7."
---
2. Stop Making Disassembly the Main Source of Materials
This is probably the biggest fundamental problem.
Currently, equipment disassembly is the way to obtain the basic crafting materials.
There's even a very well-known crafting progression where you deliberately obtain equipment within certain level ranges because those ranges produce particular material tiers when disassembled.
That isn't inherently bad as a secondary mechanic.
It's bad when it becomes the entire economy.
Disassembly should instead be something you do with equipment you already have.
If I have an old piece of armor I don't need anymore, I should be able to dismantle it and recover some useful materials.
It shouldn't be the optimal way to manufacture raw materials.
---
3. Crafting EXP Should Come From Crafting
This one seems obvious, but it's important.
No more Crafting EXP from disassembly.
Your Crafting EXP should come from actually making things.
The current system already has the problem of material recipes being one of the cheapest ways to level crafting, with guides recommending material production specifically because it can provide the same EXP more cheaply than producing equipment.
So rather than:
«Buy cheap equipment → disassemble it → make materials → repeat»
the progression should encourage you to actually participate in the crafting system.
You could still have cheap intermediate recipes for leveling, but they should be actual components or useful crafting products rather than essentially EXP coupons.
---
4. Recipes Should Be Multilayered
This is where I think crafting could become much more interesting.
Instead of a recipe simply asking for:
«Manufacturing Extract Lv. XX
Special Parts Lv. XX
Rare Mineral Lv. XX»
recipes should consist of components.
Take a sword as an example.
You don't craft the entire sword out of three piles of generic materials.
You make:
Blade
→ Requires appropriate metal
Hilt
→ Requires metal and other components
Handle
→ Requires wood, rubber, leather, etc.
Then:
Sword
→ Blade + Hilt + Handle
Now you're actually making something.
And this doesn't have to be absurdly complicated.
The important thing is that the components can be reused.
A particular handle could be used in several weapons.
A particular undersuit could be used in several pieces of armor.
A particular plate could be used in several pieces of equipment.
That creates a crafting ecosystem rather than hundreds of unrelated recipes.
---
5. Refinement
Raw materials would have three stages of refinement.
But importantly, higher level doesn't necessarily mean "strictly better."
Different recipes could require different stages.
For example:
Rubber Sheet — Lv1
↓ refinement
Rubber Plate — Lv2
↓ refinement
CC Armor Plate — Lv3
A high-level piece of equipment might require the Lv3 material, while one of its components could still require the Lv2 version.
This gives lower-stage materials continued relevance.
You aren't constantly replacing your entire material inventory every time you unlock a new crafting tier.
---
6. Refinement Should Use Existing DBO Systems
I'd also make refinement fit naturally into DBO's existing NPC structure.
Something along the lines of:
Crafting Masters
General material refinement and CC-related crafting.
Dragon Clan Skill Masters
Spell-related crafting/enhancement.
Dogi Sellers
Clothing and cloth-related enhancement.
Weapon NPCs / Blacksmith-type NPCs
Weapon forging and enhancement.
The actual refinement could work somewhat like the existing upgrade system.
You provide the materials and potentially an upgrade stone, then attempt the refinement.
Possible results:
- Success
- Great Success
- Failure
- Broken
The important distinction is that basic material acquisition isn't RNG.
You can go out and gather your Rubber.
You know what you're gathering.
The RNG only comes in when you're trying to perform a risky refinement/enhancement.
---
7. Example: CC Armor
Let's say we introduce a new:
Lv40 CC Enhanced Battle Armor
The final recipe could require:
- CC Armor Plate ×2
- Katchin Armor Plate ×2
- Rubber Undersuit ×1
But the Rubber Undersuit itself is a crafted component.
For example:
Rubber Sheet → Rubber Plate → Rubber Undersuit
So the complete production chain becomes something like:
Gather Rubber
↓
Refine Rubber
↓
Craft Rubber Plates
↓
Craft Rubber Undersuit
↓
Combine with CC Armor Plates + Katchin Plates
↓
Craft CC Enhanced Battle Armor
That's much more interesting than:
«Manufacturing Extract ×12 + Special Parts ×7»
---
8. Materials Should Actually Make Sense
This is another huge issue with the current system.
A lot of DBO's crafting identity gets lost because the basic materials are so generic.
If you're making something unique, the ingredients should at least suggest what the object is made from.
For example, you shouldn't be making Dende Priest's Porunga Rocks Scrolls out of Katchin Plates and Newspaper simply because those happen to be the materials available to the crafting system.
You could instead have something like:
- Porunga Scroll Paper
- CC Steel Tubing
- Blessed Tribe Spell
Obviously those are just examples, but the point is:
The recipe should make sense.
And this is where having a large number of materials becomes useful.
Different metals, fabrics, woods, rubbers, plants, monster materials, magical materials, technological components, etc. can all have different uses and variants.
That naturally gives us more recipes without having to make every recipe arbitrarily require a different quantity of the same three materials.
---
9. This Would Make Different Areas Matter
This system could also give the world more purpose.
For example:
Westland
Could provide common industrial materials, rubber, steel, cloth, etc.
Porunga Rocks
Could provide unique plants, wood, scroll materials, and Porunga Rocks-specific components.
Machine-heavy areas
Could provide mechanical components, specialized metals, wiring, tubing, etc.
Dungeons
Could provide rarer materials that aren't available through ordinary mobs.
That also gives us an excuse to make certain rare crafting recipes require materials from specific areas.
Instead of:
«"Farm enough Manufacturing Extract Lv. 7."»
It's:
«"I need this particular material, so I actually have to go to this part of the world."»
That sounds much more like an MMORPG crafting system.
---
10. Disassembly Still Has a Place
I'm not saying remove disassembly.
I'd actually keep it, but change its purpose.
Disassembly becomes material recovery.
You crafted an item and don't need it anymore?
Disassemble it.
You got an equipment drop that's useless?
Disassemble it.
You found an old piece of gear in your storage?
Disassemble it.
But it shouldn't be possible to turn NPC shop equipment into an infinite material generator.
The amount you recover could depend on:
- Equipment level
- Equipment rarity
- Equipment type
- Whether the item was crafted
- Potentially how much material went into making it
And I'd strongly consider making store-bought equipment impossible to disassemble, or at least give it drastically reduced returns.
The whole point is to prevent this:
«Buy 500 Lv1 gloves
↓
Disassemble 500 gloves
↓
Get an absurd amount of crafting materials
↓
Craft forever»
That completely undermines the gathering system.
Disassembly should be about recovering value from equipment, not creating an alternative resource-generation exploit.
---
11. What About Buying Materials?
I'd actually keep this.
Just make NPCs sell basic Lv1 materials.
Something like:
«Basic Rubber
Basic Steel
Basic Cloth
Basic Wood»
You'd be much more efficient gathering materials yourself, but if you're missing five pieces of Rubber and don't want to spend twenty minutes farming it, you can just buy some.
That's a good quality-of-life feature.
The important part is that NPCs shouldn't be selling every refined material.
If you want:
«CC Armor Plate»
you should actually have to make it.
---
12. Employment / Professions
This system could also eventually tie into employment.
You could have things like:
- Smithing
- CC Engineering
- Tailoring
- Cooking
- Alchemy
- Enchanting
And there could potentially be some class/race interaction.
For example, Dragon Clan characters could have some natural relationship with magical crafting, while Swordsmen could have an affinity for blade-related crafting.
But I wouldn't make those things exclusive.
The moment one class gets an exclusive crafting specialty, you have to come up with an equivalent specialty for every other class.
And realistically, there may not be a good thematic reason for every class to have one.
Instead, I'd rather have smaller bonuses.
Something like:
«Weapon Specialist: Gain additional Crafting EXP when crafting your Sub-Weapon.»
That gives classes a little bit of flavor without turning crafting into another balance nightmare.
---
The End Goal
The point of this isn't to make crafting unnecessarily complicated.
It's to make it feel like crafting.
The current DBO system is fundamentally a material conversion loop:
Get equipment → disassemble equipment → receive generic materials → combine generic materials → craft equipment.
And because material recipes can be an efficient way to level the crafting skill, the system can end up encouraging players to manufacture generic materials rather than actually engage with the equipment-crafting side of the profession.
I'd rather have:
Fight / Explore
↓
Gather Raw Materials
↓
Refine Materials
↓
Craft Components
↓
Assemble Components
↓
Create Equipment
↓
Gain Crafting EXP
↓
Unlock More Recipes
And then:
Old equipment → Disassemble → Recover some materials
rather than using disassembly as the foundation of the entire economy.
That way, crafting actually becomes another reason to interact with the world.
You're not just farming equipment because equipment happens to be a container for Manufacturing Extract.
You're farming materials because you actually need those materials.
You're crafting components because those components are part of the things you're making.
And you're making the final item because you actually built it.
That's what I think DBO's crafting system should have been doing in the first place.
Crafting is probably the weakest side system in DBO, and considering it's basically the game's only real side profession, that's kind of a problem.
For anyone unfamiliar with how it currently works, the basic loop is:
Get equipment → disassemble equipment → receive crafting materials → combine materials into other materials/items → craft.
DBO has three main generic crafting materials — Manufacturing Extract, Special Parts, and Rare Mineral — with multiple tiers. Manufacturing Extract and Special Parts are used across crafting, while Rare Mineral is primarily used for weapons. Equipment level determines the tier of materials you get from disassembly.
You then use the Hoi-Poi Mix machine to turn those materials into other materials or equipment. Crafting gives EXP, and recipes are gated by your crafting level.
The problem is that this makes crafting feel less like crafting and more like turning equipment into crafting currency.
And that's what I'd change.
---
The Big Changes
The basic idea would be:
Mobs / World → Raw Materials → Refinement → Components → Finished Item
instead of:
Equipment → Disassembly → Generic Materials → Hoi-Poi Mix → Finished Item
The Hoi-Poi Mix system can still exist. The problem isn't the Hoi-Poi machine itself; it's what we're putting into it.
---
1. Mobs Should Actually Drop Crafting Materials
The biggest change would be making crafting materials actual drops from the world.
Mobs would primarily drop unrefined, first-stage materials, such as:
- Steel Scraps
- Leather Pelts
- Rubber
- Wood
- Cloth
- Ores
- Monster materials
- Various regional materials
Different enemies and areas could have different material tables.
So instead of killing a monster and hoping it drops equipment that you can then destroy for some generic Manufacturing Extract, you're actually collecting things that make sense as crafting resources.
This also gives the world more of a relationship with crafting.
A particular area could be known for certain metals. Another could provide particular plants or woods. Machines could drop mechanical components. Porunga Rocks could have completely different materials from Earth.
And this would make specialized recipes possible without having to invent increasingly ridiculous versions of "Manufacturing Extract Lv. 7."
---
2. Stop Making Disassembly the Main Source of Materials
This is probably the biggest fundamental problem.
Currently, equipment disassembly is the way to obtain the basic crafting materials.
There's even a very well-known crafting progression where you deliberately obtain equipment within certain level ranges because those ranges produce particular material tiers when disassembled.
That isn't inherently bad as a secondary mechanic.
It's bad when it becomes the entire economy.
Disassembly should instead be something you do with equipment you already have.
If I have an old piece of armor I don't need anymore, I should be able to dismantle it and recover some useful materials.
It shouldn't be the optimal way to manufacture raw materials.
---
3. Crafting EXP Should Come From Crafting
This one seems obvious, but it's important.
No more Crafting EXP from disassembly.
Your Crafting EXP should come from actually making things.
The current system already has the problem of material recipes being one of the cheapest ways to level crafting, with guides recommending material production specifically because it can provide the same EXP more cheaply than producing equipment.
So rather than:
«Buy cheap equipment → disassemble it → make materials → repeat»
the progression should encourage you to actually participate in the crafting system.
You could still have cheap intermediate recipes for leveling, but they should be actual components or useful crafting products rather than essentially EXP coupons.
---
4. Recipes Should Be Multilayered
This is where I think crafting could become much more interesting.
Instead of a recipe simply asking for:
«Manufacturing Extract Lv. XX
Special Parts Lv. XX
Rare Mineral Lv. XX»
recipes should consist of components.
Take a sword as an example.
You don't craft the entire sword out of three piles of generic materials.
You make:
Blade
→ Requires appropriate metal
Hilt
→ Requires metal and other components
Handle
→ Requires wood, rubber, leather, etc.
Then:
Sword
→ Blade + Hilt + Handle
Now you're actually making something.
And this doesn't have to be absurdly complicated.
The important thing is that the components can be reused.
A particular handle could be used in several weapons.
A particular undersuit could be used in several pieces of armor.
A particular plate could be used in several pieces of equipment.
That creates a crafting ecosystem rather than hundreds of unrelated recipes.
---
5. Refinement
Raw materials would have three stages of refinement.
But importantly, higher level doesn't necessarily mean "strictly better."
Different recipes could require different stages.
For example:
Rubber Sheet — Lv1
↓ refinement
Rubber Plate — Lv2
↓ refinement
CC Armor Plate — Lv3
A high-level piece of equipment might require the Lv3 material, while one of its components could still require the Lv2 version.
This gives lower-stage materials continued relevance.
You aren't constantly replacing your entire material inventory every time you unlock a new crafting tier.
---
6. Refinement Should Use Existing DBO Systems
I'd also make refinement fit naturally into DBO's existing NPC structure.
Something along the lines of:
Crafting Masters
General material refinement and CC-related crafting.
Dragon Clan Skill Masters
Spell-related crafting/enhancement.
Dogi Sellers
Clothing and cloth-related enhancement.
Weapon NPCs / Blacksmith-type NPCs
Weapon forging and enhancement.
The actual refinement could work somewhat like the existing upgrade system.
You provide the materials and potentially an upgrade stone, then attempt the refinement.
Possible results:
- Success
- Great Success
- Failure
- Broken
The important distinction is that basic material acquisition isn't RNG.
You can go out and gather your Rubber.
You know what you're gathering.
The RNG only comes in when you're trying to perform a risky refinement/enhancement.
---
7. Example: CC Armor
Let's say we introduce a new:
Lv40 CC Enhanced Battle Armor
The final recipe could require:
- CC Armor Plate ×2
- Katchin Armor Plate ×2
- Rubber Undersuit ×1
But the Rubber Undersuit itself is a crafted component.
For example:
Rubber Sheet → Rubber Plate → Rubber Undersuit
So the complete production chain becomes something like:
Gather Rubber
↓
Refine Rubber
↓
Craft Rubber Plates
↓
Craft Rubber Undersuit
↓
Combine with CC Armor Plates + Katchin Plates
↓
Craft CC Enhanced Battle Armor
That's much more interesting than:
«Manufacturing Extract ×12 + Special Parts ×7»
---
8. Materials Should Actually Make Sense
This is another huge issue with the current system.
A lot of DBO's crafting identity gets lost because the basic materials are so generic.
If you're making something unique, the ingredients should at least suggest what the object is made from.
For example, you shouldn't be making Dende Priest's Porunga Rocks Scrolls out of Katchin Plates and Newspaper simply because those happen to be the materials available to the crafting system.
You could instead have something like:
- Porunga Scroll Paper
- CC Steel Tubing
- Blessed Tribe Spell
Obviously those are just examples, but the point is:
The recipe should make sense.
And this is where having a large number of materials becomes useful.
Different metals, fabrics, woods, rubbers, plants, monster materials, magical materials, technological components, etc. can all have different uses and variants.
That naturally gives us more recipes without having to make every recipe arbitrarily require a different quantity of the same three materials.
---
9. This Would Make Different Areas Matter
This system could also give the world more purpose.
For example:
Westland
Could provide common industrial materials, rubber, steel, cloth, etc.
Porunga Rocks
Could provide unique plants, wood, scroll materials, and Porunga Rocks-specific components.
Machine-heavy areas
Could provide mechanical components, specialized metals, wiring, tubing, etc.
Dungeons
Could provide rarer materials that aren't available through ordinary mobs.
That also gives us an excuse to make certain rare crafting recipes require materials from specific areas.
Instead of:
«"Farm enough Manufacturing Extract Lv. 7."»
It's:
«"I need this particular material, so I actually have to go to this part of the world."»
That sounds much more like an MMORPG crafting system.
---
10. Disassembly Still Has a Place
I'm not saying remove disassembly.
I'd actually keep it, but change its purpose.
Disassembly becomes material recovery.
You crafted an item and don't need it anymore?
Disassemble it.
You got an equipment drop that's useless?
Disassemble it.
You found an old piece of gear in your storage?
Disassemble it.
But it shouldn't be possible to turn NPC shop equipment into an infinite material generator.
The amount you recover could depend on:
- Equipment level
- Equipment rarity
- Equipment type
- Whether the item was crafted
- Potentially how much material went into making it
And I'd strongly consider making store-bought equipment impossible to disassemble, or at least give it drastically reduced returns.
The whole point is to prevent this:
«Buy 500 Lv1 gloves
↓
Disassemble 500 gloves
↓
Get an absurd amount of crafting materials
↓
Craft forever»
That completely undermines the gathering system.
Disassembly should be about recovering value from equipment, not creating an alternative resource-generation exploit.
---
11. What About Buying Materials?
I'd actually keep this.
Just make NPCs sell basic Lv1 materials.
Something like:
«Basic Rubber
Basic Steel
Basic Cloth
Basic Wood»
You'd be much more efficient gathering materials yourself, but if you're missing five pieces of Rubber and don't want to spend twenty minutes farming it, you can just buy some.
That's a good quality-of-life feature.
The important part is that NPCs shouldn't be selling every refined material.
If you want:
«CC Armor Plate»
you should actually have to make it.
---
12. Employment / Professions
This system could also eventually tie into employment.
You could have things like:
- Smithing
- CC Engineering
- Tailoring
- Cooking
- Alchemy
- Enchanting
And there could potentially be some class/race interaction.
For example, Dragon Clan characters could have some natural relationship with magical crafting, while Swordsmen could have an affinity for blade-related crafting.
But I wouldn't make those things exclusive.
The moment one class gets an exclusive crafting specialty, you have to come up with an equivalent specialty for every other class.
And realistically, there may not be a good thematic reason for every class to have one.
Instead, I'd rather have smaller bonuses.
Something like:
«Weapon Specialist: Gain additional Crafting EXP when crafting your Sub-Weapon.»
That gives classes a little bit of flavor without turning crafting into another balance nightmare.
---
The End Goal
The point of this isn't to make crafting unnecessarily complicated.
It's to make it feel like crafting.
The current DBO system is fundamentally a material conversion loop:
Get equipment → disassemble equipment → receive generic materials → combine generic materials → craft equipment.
And because material recipes can be an efficient way to level the crafting skill, the system can end up encouraging players to manufacture generic materials rather than actually engage with the equipment-crafting side of the profession.
I'd rather have:
Fight / Explore
↓
Gather Raw Materials
↓
Refine Materials
↓
Craft Components
↓
Assemble Components
↓
Create Equipment
↓
Gain Crafting EXP
↓
Unlock More Recipes
And then:
Old equipment → Disassemble → Recover some materials
rather than using disassembly as the foundation of the entire economy.
That way, crafting actually becomes another reason to interact with the world.
You're not just farming equipment because equipment happens to be a container for Manufacturing Extract.
You're farming materials because you actually need those materials.
You're crafting components because those components are part of the things you're making.
And you're making the final item because you actually built it.
That's what I think DBO's crafting system should have been doing in the first place.
