I haven't been on this forum long but I have seen enough posted about flaws. I wanted to start a thread that voiced common general flaws or rather shortcomings in designs from the fans point of view but also solutions. Please don't bash particular figures, just hoping to get 3RD PARTY and Takara to build and design better figures at these prices. Problems AND solutions welcome. I'll start.

Combiner ratchets weak. I feel like most figures don't have enough teeth and they arent deep enough so they move too much. I think the larger the toy, the more deep teeth it should have to hold poses without flopping. Die cast gears may help or harder plastic. I thought springs to keep pressure when needed and deeper grooves would solve a lot of the issues with larger combiners.

Leg gap for elbow joints. I hear a lot of complaints yet they all keep doing it. Cartoon always drew figures fuselages bending so when we see gappy legs for elbows we go nuts. Can't arms for combiners extend their whole body in two places, just enough to get a double joint similar to what I'm guessing scorias tail is like? I think it would make the alternative mode easy and more atractive.

Touch up paint. Not a lot of it but if you know your prone to chip or wear in some areas, why not include some in a tiny tube etc.

Thoughts other problems/solutions?

 

Jets with huge amount of undercarriage junk. We've had some pretty stellar jetformers over the years, but when a toy comes out that looks like a brick with wings, it sucks. Even if you make the brick all nicely rounded.

 

proper heels to allow the bot to stand in many good poses.

 

A waist swivel and articulated wrists...Always. Please.

 

Face sculpts. They could definitely use some leveling up across the board.

 

That's a big one with ratchets. WAY too many figures have the issue (especially with the outwards-hip-ratchet) where "straight" just doesn't work well for balance, but "one click out" makes it look like he's doing the splits. MMC Feralcons all have this issue. There really needs to be one more "in-between" ratcheting point for a nice, natural, subtle "A-stance" when standing. Not "II" vs "/\" and nothing inbetween. Ratchets are kinda pointless when only 2 positions are really usable, and both are "too extreme" to be GOOD positions.

We need ratchets with more/finer positions.

 

That made me scratch my head since I am not noticing this at all. Beast Hunters Shockwave has that problem though, but to say MMC Feralcons have these kinds of problem is just nitpicking (and I am not even the biggest fan of Bovis and Fortis).

 

I haven't received my feral cons yet but I have had a few figures with weak ratchets in their legs and combiners especially in both arms and legs. It's even more of an issue when you have the full weight of a figure and then try to extend it as is the case with combiners.. I've purchasedone really cheap tools that had strong enough ratchets. Moread expensive tools had less play between settings and more teeth so I know it's possible. Maybe we just need cheap tool ratchet tech in our toys. If they can tighten ft lbs of torque they should be able to hold 2 lbs of plastic or less in an extended pose.

 

Any type of kibble backpack should peg in together. Think the solidity of Harrier/Phantom backpack versus Blackbird.

Shorter tabs for figures that require a lot of panel fu.

 

I don't have that issue with any of the feralcons myself, but I do agree it's a common problem (My Hexatron has it though, as does my Green Giant - good news is for the later, the figure's heavy enough I can keep it between two ratchet and be stable as the figure weight prevents any movement).

 

I think issues are unforeseen for the most part. Once the mistake is made... from what I've seen (as a whole),they learn from it... as do the other companies watching it happen.

 

Something I see way, way too often, especially in official figures, is, with car-based robots, wheels and car panels just being plopped onto the arms or legs of the robot mode when they have no business being there. It can be solved pretty easily- DOTM Nitro Bumblebee's wheels rotate onto the inside of his ankles as they should with a pretty simple mechanism. Masterpiece Sideswipe has a mechanism to hide his wheels in his chest when they could have ended up just sitting on the sides of his torso. Those little things really help streamline a robot.

 

Honestly with most companies still failing to even get ankle, hip, elbow and shoulder joints right I'd like them to get better at those basic things first over engineering smarter transformations and whatnot.

I can deal with kibble or gappy combiner arms or whatever but a figure that can't even stand or pose well or wield its own weapons without the arms sagging or it falling over entirely due to its own bad weight distribution is just infuriatingly still too common. This kind of thing always making me want to avoid buying any figure that isn't produced by the companies I know take this stuff super seriously.

But my other biggest engineering petpeeve is probably just loose parts in general. Any panel or wing or wheel or thing that just doesn't stay where it should in robot mode. Ugly kibble is ugly but at the very least a company should make sure it doesn't move when I move the figure or even worse; fall off altogether.

If a shake a figure and nothing dislodges or moves or comes off that makes it already 1000% superior to 90% of what's on the market.

 

Very nice thread idea, thanks op for creating it, hopefully some will see it and it will affect future toy making

 

I might be in the minority on this one but it irks me when 3rd parties don't put in wheels on figures with land vehicle alt-modes. Like the treads on Revolver for a example. Would make that big of a cost difference to put some wheels in the treads. I know these are "collector" pieces but play value matters to me.

 

youre welcome I really like the positivity in this thread and everyone's thoughts and feedback. hopefully the people that make toys are watching this closely

 

The one I think is the biggest issue and should be thought of and dealt with besides any other is the floppy joints in combiners.

Up to this point, 3rd Party hasn't shown that they have learned from this.

Hercules: Don't get me started
M3: From his ankles up. You play with it for a while, the gears get worn and you have a floppy mess.
Uranos: Maybe you can say it got better, but you still need to open it up and add a washer to keep him from doing the splits.

This is the core of the toy. I would prefer for them to fix this first before anything else. Shit, even HasTak can take notes.

 

Super easy one - always make the hands 5mm compatible. The majority of TFs use 5mm pegs, as do all the minicons. Sticking with 5mm hands and pegs opens a huge realm of compatibility with other products.

 

Proportions. I'm seeing a lot of weird joint placement lately. Things like a really short biceps leading into realllllly long forearms, which looks especially odd when a figure with this bends their arms. I just think there needs to be more of a focus on proper joint placement so that figures look good in more than a standing pose.

To go along with this, outward limb articulation seems to be going out of style, and I have no idea why. All of it really comes down to proper joint placement, and using the right kind of joint setup to begin with. I think the outward arm movement on FP Car Crash and T-Bone was really well done, to give a positive example. They have upper arm kibble that at first glance would hinder the outward arm movement, but the shoulders were designed in such a way that it wasn't an issue at all. Very smart, I'd like to see more of that.

 

GG has no problems and I am not expecting one for Feral Rex as well.