The QC issues are part of what is killing it for me. Hound really soured me on the line for a bit. It seems like each new release has it's own issues. While I realize it is probably only a handful of people having said issues, I'd hate to drop big money and be the one with those issues. I feel I need more durability with my figures. MP-10 looks great and is fairly rugged, surviving many transformations. While my MP-36, I'm terrified of breaking. Not because I'm ham-fisted but, because it just seems more fragile.

 

@MidnightBliss, that's why I order at Amazon Japan. If there's something wrong with a Masterpiece, I can just exchange it.

 

I did collect official and 3rd party MPs, but I stopped collecting the officials for a while due to price, QC and completion of my collection. The last two official G1 figures I bought were Hound and the new Starscream. I have the Maketoys Hound and Starscream which I really like. Getting the official ones in hand made me feel disappointed. They look great, but wasn't worth the money asked for. I'm glad I'm just waiting for Fanstoys Skullcruncher to be done collecting MPs for good. Takara became more expensive than 3rd party, but Fanstoys decided to join the expensive club too. It was a good run for collecting.

 

Price.

I do have Grimlock MP, but it's after one year of saving.

I might get MP Wheeljack sometimes in the future since he's also my favorite character, but the pandemic happening is certainly not helping.

 

With the current mainline stuff rocking it, I have no further need for MPs except for a few favorite characters

 

As awesome as MP52 is. It made me take a step back and say "$300 and a 7 month wait for this thing? Wtf am I doing?" I enjoy legends more and that's a big part of it as well. I'm fairly certain 52 was my last MP.

 

3rd party legends. Cheaper, smaller and just as intricate and poseable as MP.

 

Fixed it for you.  

It's a shame though that QA issues are pushing people away from the Masterpiece line. The QA issues that I've had were either solved by swapping the item or fixing it myself. Don't you experience similar QA issues with the Legends line?

 

Character selection mostly. I used to be all-in on these (for in-show characters) but then it just got to the point where I was like “you know what? These aren’t exactly cheap. And I don’t have unlimited space. And I don’t even really care about most of these characters.” And even new versions of old characters I like (Prime and Starscream, mostly) don’t interest me because I have MP-10 and honestly MP-03 is good enough for me.

Let me know when they finally make Masterpiece Insecticons. Or Blurr.

And WHEN are we gonna get more Beast Wars? I will literally buy every in-show character they do from that show  

 

Never. I tend to lean newage and their paint is awesome. Joints are always tight and they use a high quality plastic. There's something to be said about the whole playability factor and these have it. Not to mention they're really durable. I had my starscream literally fall about 15 feet onto and down wooden steps nothing broke, scratched or popped off. Still like new. I have a second copy (toy version) on the way. Granted they're so lightweight that a fall couldn't do much. By contrast however...if my MP 52 took that same fall it would be in pieces.

 

Also...Legends aren't necessarily cheap but they're not $300 either.

 

For me, it's primarily price and aesthetics. They've shifted their idea for the line 3 times and they've produced a fraction of the show's cast under each vision, and I have no interest in buying the same character again in multiple styles because they won't stay consistent. While the WFC aesthetic has some variance, it feels far more consistent than the MPs do at a much cheaper price point, and released in a much more reasonable time frame. We've already got the majority of the Season 1 and 2 casts on both sides in the WFC style in the same amount of time it took HasTak to release 8 G1 masterpiece figures (And that's including the toon-style recolors of Wheeljack, Bluestreak, and Smokescreen).

 

When MP started, it was more the idea that I wouldn't have all my favs at that scale and at the time I never imagined that Hasbro would go the distance and produce nowhere near as many as they have. With 3P filling in the gaps, I would've been happy with going strictly MP if I'd had a crystal ball. It was never about cost for me.

What I really dug was the nice sweet spot between real world sensibilities and nailing the essence of the character that early MP had. Like Alternators done right/way better.

But now, I'm glad I didn't go the MP route because I would've ended up frustrated as half my MP collection would have one unified look with slick alt-modes and a bit of creative license for bot mode with the latter half having the uber-toon accuracy, which (to me) just doesn't look right at that scale. All those flat, abstract, negative space surfaces close up at CHUG scale and so looks fine being toon accurate but at MP size, there's not enough detail to make the figure pop and ends up looking plain.

 

I purchased MP01 at Walmart for about $60 (irc) back in the day. I still have him and I haven't collected a single MP figure since.

In recent years I've considered it, but it's the prices that deter me.

 

Price and QC are the two main reasons I quit the MP line.

I collected every Hasbro release from the beginning, and nearly every Takara release from MP12 up through MP47.

I'm not a huge fan of the toon aesthetics, but the shift didn't bother me too much (until Bumble version 2). The Inferno mold is probably my favorite of the entire line, as it successfully merges a realistic alt mode with the toon-friendly aesthetic, while also being intuitive and fun to play with.

MP44 is probably my most regrettable Transformers purchase. No matter how I look at it, I just cannot justify the amount of money I spent on that figure, and I do not enjoy transforming or handling him. Nevermind the fact that I had to perform surgery on his knee right out of the box... And yes, I got him from Amazon JP (the lowest price available, by far). In comparison, I still enjoy handling MP10 and managed to get the Hasbro version for 3.5x less money than MP44.

And then came MP47... Oh man.
He was overpriced to begin with, but I figured it would be worth it since Sunstreaker turned out to be such an amazing figure.
The QC on Hound was completely unacceptable, and was the first and only figure I've ever returned. I am still somewhat offended that Takara has not addressed the widespread issues, and have continued to put out overpriced figures since then.

On top of all this, Hasbro has been putting out affordable and easy-to-handle figures for the past few years, which I find much more enjoyable. Don't get me wrong, MP52 Starscream looks awesome in pics, but he costs the same as 8 WFC seekers... For me, it's just not worth it anymore.

All of that being said... Yes, I did preorder MP Skids. I like the fact that he'll fit in with my carbots, and I especially like the more reasonable price. Hopefully he turns out to be solid.

It is sort of a bummer to see how aimless this line has become. For instance, are they done with BW characters? What's the deal with the train bots? Was Arcee a one-off, or will there be more S3 bots?

And I can't be the only one who bailed but would gladly jump back in if they decided to tackle a Jazz or a Galvatron...

 

I'd buy them If I could afford them, they looks really nice, but I have no job as of yet.

 

MP-36 goes for around $300.00 on eBay. And thus why I do not collect Masterpiece (except the couple 3P I have.)

 

I have an assortment of Masterpieces for select characters that I really like but price would be the primary reason I don't go off the deep end and start mass buying the line.
I also don't like how there are missing characters that I think should be natural fits. Like whats a Grimlock w/o the other 4 Dinobots or whats Star Saber without Leo?
Between those two it basically means I've adjusted my mindset to being okay with just a few pieces for display whereas Generations/Chug becomes the more hands on/collecting line.

 

It's a matter of collecting priorities. Completing your average CHUG line (100% of Kingdom for example) will runa bout $1200-$1400. So if, like many of us, you've completed much of CW, TR, PotP, Siege, ER, and now Kingdom, you've spent about $6000-$7000 on CHUG in the last 6 years. And that's before Selects, which is hundreds of dollars more, per line, every year. And now a lot of people are getting into addon parts too.

CHUG is more expensive than Masterpiece overall if you're completionist. You trade $150, $200 and rarey $300+ figures, two or three times a year, for 18 deluxes at $22, 6 voyagers at $33, 4 leaders a $53, 1 commander at $80 and 1 titan at $160. And that's before troop building at deluxe and voyager scales, which every line has done since Siege, very intentionally. It's ironic within a few years we go from starving for "Voyager Seeker" molds to having bought the Siege Seeker mold like 10 times in different decos.

THe CHUG way let's people be selective in what they're not getting. A lot of people are going to be a lot more selective about Legacy than WFC because of that. That allows a degree of control that doesn't exist if you're a MP collector, unless you decide "no to Beast Wars" and "no to redecos".

If you throw in getting FansToys 3P MPs to fill in the gaps for a pure canon G1 collection of MPs, you're still spending less than CHUG per year.

Back in 2014, I had to choose: do I collect CHUG or MP. I didn't want to do both. I went with CHUG because I wanted the ENTIRE character roster recreated. I still go in for the "must have" MPs (MP-44s, MP-36, MP Starscream 2.0), but you won't see me pick up MP Skids or something.

In short, if you're in the TF collecting hobby, unless you're hyper selective and picking up only a handful of chug figures a year, it really makes no difference if you buy $300 of CHUG or $300 of MP.

 

Masterpieces are expensive, yes, but everything which you buy after release on eBay is too expensive. If you would have bought Megatron upon release, he would have costed only half. I paid little less than 150 USD excluding shipping for Megatron.

It keeps surprising me how people state that Masterpieces are expensive, which they are, but then come with these strange examples, like eBay or some expensive shop in their city, when the same item could be bought elsewhere for far less.