I personally can't mandate anything, outside of incredible rote sentiments like "there has to be a toy in the box" or "toy should have the means to stand under it's own power"

Mandatory design elements lead to stagnation and inhibits creative problem solving. "All TFs must have waist joints" then renders a design like Trypticon's either impossible or just extra clunky. "Wrists must be able to turn 360 degrees" renders clever design work like MMC Assaultus an impossibility.

My Transformers are Transformers first, action figures second. If all I wanted was cool pose-offs, I'd just stick to Marvel Legends. I can accept trade-offs in articulation if it allows for better stability or ingenuity in the main play feature of a transforming toy.

 

There is no point in reading any further   

 

Boxes inside of boxes inside of boxes like a Russian nesting doll

 

A fanstoys QC sticker; doesn’t matter the company

 

Egad.

 

Okay then. No triple-posting like a fool.

 

Alright, more on the design-side than on the "things a toy must have" side: test your damned toys in-person. So many 3P toys embody "well, it worked in CAD". If you wince once at "stretching" pieces that attempt to occupy the same physical space at the same time, or painted parts that physically scrape past one another, back to the goddamned drawing board.

Looking at you FT. And often XTB.

 

A reflective metallic paint on the eyes! No light piping, or LED shit. If the light doesn't hit it right, or you turn the LED off, the face looks dead. Just give us a nice dab of freaking metallic paint. It's not going to increase the cost that much. Hell, might be cheaper than using reflective plastic or adding electronic parts to light up. You can still add a light feature if you do nicely reflective eyes.

 

Figure scale permitting, silver paint behind a translucent lens gives the best possible effect.

 

My issue here is that if it's a figure that's been engineered where it makes it so that it can't have the standard waist or wrist swivel or ab crunch or whatever, then I get it. FT Thomas' design reference has these extended pieces on the forearm that block the write articulation, or the MP-52 one piece waist design that doesn't allow for a swivel. I get it. But if there's a figure that has no reason NOT to have, say, a bicep cut or ankle tilt or ball jointed wrists/hands, etc., then that's just being lazy. The RP Acoustic Wave Rumble/Frenzy tapes have a very ingenious way of transformation that I kind of like, but they limited themselves on articulation when it looks like they could have just added it in, and would not have affected the design much. Just an extra pin joint or mushroom peg or something.

It's gotten to the point that I just add in the metallic paint on the eyes myself now.

 

Free Hat!

 

Big Firebird: bag to hide the figure from kids or spouses

Cang Toys: warning card that explains their designs are not G1-based

GCreation, Generation Toy & Maketoys: disclaimer card promising they definitely not dead

Iron Factory: Satanic contact to make their designs mp-size and quality. You choose which body part to send them in exchange

 

To each their own, but I only want to see windows like that if it’s made by Playskool. I get that some people like the toon aesthetic, but that looks like a Lightning McQueen toy made for toddlers.

 

No more cost-increasing electronics/tiny Neodymium magnets in legends class/scale figures.

MS Megatron, & Shockwave (I think so, anyway) are great enough without a tiny bulb/magnets that my cat could eat and die from.

Also, more diversity in 3P legends. Stop rehashing the same characters again & again.

I want a legends Nightbeat, dammit.

 

You know, these comments kind of point out why I have fallen a little out of love with Fans Toys. Great material, but they are years behind on articulation. Not every figure has waist swivel, most don't have ab crunch, no butterfly joints, figures don't always hold their weapons too well, and sometimes the range in joints are almost useless.

Oh, and their jacked up, ebay matching prices.

 

Although I won't ever buy a FT product again, I just want to speak up for those that will. And to counter something you said.

More durable materials. I've said this here before, but I had a Scoria who's hand crumbled.

The fingers more specifically. The pin wasn't misaligned, they just crumbled due to poor materials.

I had to give him away for free + S&H.

 

typo..."a box that says what is inside"

 

Well, third party materials have a large range of quality and the Fans Toys I have purchased always feel pretty good. I am sure they aren't perfect though.