Part count, paint apps, plastic volume, and—to a lesser degree—overall figure size. (Notice that DD is wider than most figures the same height.)

Anything that adds an extra step in the assembly process leads to a price increase. People seem to have no trouble understanding this when a Voyager-sized Masterpiece figure is priced over $100, oddly enough.

Frankly, I’m surprised Voyagers don’t cost more than they do. Instead of seeing Deluxes and Leaders as overpriced, why doesn’t anyone realize that Voyagers are probably underpriced by around 20%?

 

You've said something that I never knew I wanted.

 

I remember having this guy from my childhood (random present from my grandparents) and I never knew his name until this new toy. Haha.

 

Does anyone else have a loose hinge joint at the waist on the Cliffjumper?
If so, how did one fix it without knocking out the pin?

 

The one that the windshield is attached to?

 

No this one.

 

@ziltama could tape work for this?

 

What kind

 

John Warden himself and others have spoke on this many times, the quality has gone up across the board, the difference between Voyagers and Ledaers? How much does Ultra Magnus weigh compared to any other Voyager? How much does the totality of Astrotrain weigh vs Voyagers? Now parts count, complexity, paint and so on and so on.

Is height the core of your complaint? That appears to be the issue for most, they are accustomed to all Leaders being around 9inches but compare any PWT Leader to a WFC Leader and you'll see a clear difference in quality, articulation, paint and more.

If you compare PWT Leaders to WFC Leaders or SS Leaders by weight, they are all withing range, admittedly some Leaders may be lighter, some heavier but if you weigh all Leaders in a line, divide by the total you get an average, take the low and high end and you can get a range etc. Overall point there, they are all within a similar weight range, that's only a small piece. some might say take away the train car and hes just a Voyager but that is incorrect. Even without the train car, he weighs MORE than a typical Voyager, has higher parts count, more paint and is more complex.
So even removing the train car, Astrotrain would NOT fit within the Voyager Class and could not be sold at that Class without financial loss to Hasbro, it exceeds Voyager Class in all ways.
A great example, Leader Class Dragonstorm, no one complained that he wasnt a true Voyager yet look at the scale, he weighs LESS than the Leader Class Astrotrain full offering. There are plenty of Leaders that weigh less than WFC Leaders if you look, weigh is just one measure that is easy to show, easy to understand, parts count would require you to take each figure apart and so on etc.

What’s It Like to Design and Engineer Toys?

What determines Class has been told to us many times, the information is out there, you can hear it from John Warden himself but basically each Class up offers more parts, more raw materials, paint, complexity etc.

Raw height is important to some but I personally much prefer a figure that is of a higher quality, less hollowness, more articulation, and in scale.
Prime example, TR Astrotrain is taller than WFC yes but look at the legs, they are hollow, so are his forearms. You can make a finger taller by stretching the plastic, hollow limbs, cavities etc.
I'm glad that the days of having characters in the same line being out of scale with each other has passed. A TR Voyager Megatron with a TR Leader Soundwave just didn't make sense. Granted if you do not care about scale than theres no issue there.

Leader Class figures are not as tall as they were in PWT but overall they are much better.

 

There's two joints in that area. One for the actual waist rotation and the other is to bring the legs down for bot mode.

Tape method will not work for either as the requirement is to take apart the joint. ER figures are much more heavily pinned compared to earlier lines, even Siege. Both of these joints require unpinning flathead pins, which is not recommended. The joint that brings the legs down is directly attached to a flathead pin. The other requires the removal of 2 flathead pins and 1 regular pin.

Removing flathead pins by force will most likely result in cracked or broken plastic pieces. Flathead pins have ridges in them. Soldering iron is what's used for bigger flathead pins as this will make the plastic soft to go around the ridges and not crack when removing said pins. Here, there is a high chance of melting surrounding plastic with such little clearance not to mention coordinating the solder gun heat with pushing the pin from the other side.

The heat from the solder gun can also alter the joint itself and make it even more loose.

Only method left is with floor polish or superglue. This may get messy and show crusting when done. I honestly would leave it alone.

 

Excellent analysis, @PrimalFury. What's apparent is that Hasbro has reduced both the height and weight range of each size class in WFC compared to Prime Wars and earlier toylines, while increasing prices at the same time. The tradeoff is, I guess, better design, more paint applications, and less hollowness in some instances, although YMMV.

In terms of the leader class, I would say it's been hit-and-miss in terms of the integration of the additional parts (and the associated weight) with the voyager-sized figure. Ultra Magnus and Galaxy Upgrade Optimus Prime did this successfully by having trailers transform into canonically accurate armor. ER Optimus Prime obviously has the trailer included, and Doubledealer is understandable due to the size of the rocket he's packin'. Dude is jacked.

On the other hand, Shockwave and Astrotrain feel more like the extra parts are there to justify placing them in the leader class range because the figures on their own missed the weight cutoff for voyager class (according to your argument). It's cute that Astrotrain has an add-on car that can also be a base, but in no way is it integral to the character. Same for Shockwave's extra arms and boots. Tangentially related, see also Cliffjumper as a scout-sized "deluxe" with extra accessories to make up the difference.

If this was Prime Wars or Generations, you probably could've placed Astrotrain and Shockwave in the voyager class minus the extra stuff, because the weight range that existed at the time might've had room for them. In WFC, those thresholds are clearly lower.

I will say that I like the commitment to scale being consistent across this line. I would've also liked it to be compatible with earlier lines, but I understand why that's not necessarily possible.

 

earthrise is generations, the logo is on the box.

 

You know what I mean.  

 

It’s great to see right

I don’t count Japan one lol as I didn’t see it as a kid lol also rebirth was part of season 3 for me lol

 

That's not even what they're talking about, they're talking about the 3 episode "4th Season" that only we in the West got, called The Rebirth.

 

Just had a peak in the latest Figure King magazine. Nothing new but it does confirm that (at least the Japanese) Allicon will indeed be pink and not gray.

(While TT uses an incorrectly colored prototype of ER Prime in their initial pictures, Figure King had the final version of the toy with blue fists.)

Hope we'll get actual product shots of the Western release soon so we can confirm what color he'll be over there.
Since the brand unification figures have been the same on both sides of the pond though..

 

figure king showed both the incorrect prime and the correct one in different issues (just looked up the pics on google) so being in the magazine is hardly confirmation of final colors

 

You're right! I didn't go back far enough to catch the issue with the old prototype.
My bad!

 

issue 262 had the old takara specific prototype (the one with the whole trailer hitch on one leg)

and issue 263 had the final one


its something easy to miss unless you actually go back and look it up  

 

Yeah, I did actually do a proper search for "Figure King" in the news forums, which gives you all the high quality scans from Loopaza. I just only went back as far as issue 263, which has the final version of the toy. Should've checked the next one too.. d'oh! XD
Thanks for reposting the scans.