Is Hero Factory becoming like Bionicle?

[Waaja]

 

I wonder if there was a similar discussion between Throwbots/Slizers, Roboriders and BIONICLE?

Not really, because Throwbots/Slizer and Roboriders didn't last long enough for any kind of trends to even be perceived. The topic title is phrased a bit poorly — the concern is not that Hero Factory is becoming more BIONICLE-like in its design, which I'm sure would actually be perceived as a good thing by many BIONICLE fans, but rather that it's going down the same path that BIONICLE (allegedly) followed in the post-Inika years. In other words, the same basic parts palette being utilized each year rather than retiring still-useful parts and replacing them with new parts to provide a superficial sense of variety.

 

My bad, I realised the title might cause some confusion only a little after starting this thread, sorry about that.

[fishers64]

 

I'd say Hero Factory is following a similar downfall to Bionicle and is doomed to be discontinued in a year or two.

I'd say you're a fanboy.

 

As crazy as It sounds, I PREFER HF OVER BIONICLE.

 

There's nothing wrong with that.

 

Perhaps you prefer sets above story? I like HF sets better than Bionicle sets.

[KZN02]

 

 

I wonder if there was a similar discussion between Throwbots/Slizers, Roboriders and BIONICLE?

Not really, because Throwbots/Slizer and Roboriders didn't last long enough for any kind of trends to even be perceived. The topic title is phrased a bit poorly — the concern is not that Hero Factory is becoming more BIONICLE-like in its design, which I'm sure would actually be perceived as a good thing by many BIONICLE fans, but rather that it's going down the same path that BIONICLE (allegedly) followed in the post-Inika years. In other words, the same basic parts palette being utilized each year rather than retiring still-useful parts and replacing them with new parts to provide a superficial sense of variety.

 

My bad, I realised the title might cause some confusion only a little after starting this thread, sorry about that.

 

I wasn't so much as confused as just simply begging the question.

[Kopekemaster]

Guess it's about time I post here.

 

I suppose if you mean the question as "Is HF following the same trends in complexity*time as Bionicle", then I would agree. Bionicle sets easily started out more complex than they were when Bionicle ended. In the beginning, we had lots of connector pins, gears, etc., and building a set actually took a good amount of time, and, at least for the first few times you built it, you needed the instructions.

 

Towards the end, I was able to pretty much spill out the pieces and build the set without the instruction booklet.

 

In HF, I guess some of the earlier sets were more complex, but it was more like they picked up the complexity where Bionicle left it off. Not very. But I would say that they have, for the most part, gotten simpler over time. There is, however, the point that the very new sets are more complex. And I would say that is good.

 

But I do see HF having similar patterns in complexity that Bionicle had.

[Aanchir]

Guess it's about time I post here.

 

I suppose if you mean the question as "Is HF following the same trends in complexity*time as Bionicle", then I would agree. Bionicle sets easily started out more complex than they were when Bionicle ended. In the beginning, we had lots of connector pins, gears, etc., and building a set actually took a good amount of time, and, at least for the first few times you built it, you needed the instructions.

 

Towards the end, I was able to pretty much spill out the pieces and build the set without the instruction booklet.

Depends on the set, I think. A Toa Mata, for instance, is remarkably easy to build from just a picture. The only reason it might be hard is if you've never built a BIONICLE set before. There's even less mystery in Tahu's build than in the build of, say, Stronius. The Bohrok were marginally more complex, but to play on a tagline used at the time, "if you've built one you've built them all".

 

Among larger sets, Toa Mata Nui was every bit as complex as the similar-priced Tarakava, and the 2008 Takanuva was maybe even more complex than the slightly-more-expensive Nui-Jaga. The 2008 and 2009 Vehicle sets were also every bit as complex as any similarly-sized Rahi. I will concede that the small sets of 2008-2010 were slightly less complex than the Turaga, but the small sets were never very complex to begin with — the most complex they ever got was actually in 2007, with the Mahri Nui Matoran using a design as complex as it was elegant.

 

In HF, I guess some of the earlier sets were more complex, but it was more like they picked up the complexity where Bionicle left it off. Not very. But I would say that they have, for the most part, gotten simpler over time. There is, however, the point that the very new sets are more complex. And I would say that is good.

 

But I do see HF having similar patterns in complexity that Bionicle had.

Again, you have to compare sets that are similar in size and price point. Since 2011, the small Hero Factory sets have been way more complex than the crummy seventeen-piece heroes from 2010, though in 2012 and 2013 the increases in complexity also came with $1 increases in price. There's not a single small hero or villain from 2012 or 2013 that could be considered remotely close to the mind-numbing simplicity of the first-wave Hero sets. I'd even go so far as to say that the $9 Toxic Reapa, Jawblade, and Thornraxx sets from early 2012 are more complex in their design than most of the $13 Hero Factory villains from 2010. Slightly lower piece counts, but less of those pieces are wasted on simple pins and axles that don't really add any meaningful complexity to the design.

 

As for mid-size sets, there's no way I could build Bruizer without instructions, but I could build pretty much any of the mid-size villain sets from 2010 without instructions, and that's having never owned a single 2010 Hero Factory set. Frost Beast I could maybe build without instructions, but it'd still be more of a challenge than building XPlode or Meltdown or Corroder or Thunder. Likewise, Splitface, Core Hunter, Voltix, and the 2012 Bulk set easily outclass any of those four 2010 sets in complexity. Really, the 2010 mid-size sets are not difficult to beat. They were not as bad as the heroes that year, but they were pretty crummy themselves.

 

Among $20 titan sets, Rotor and Von Nebula set a pretty high bar for complexity, easily surpassing such sets as Stormer XL, Furno XL, and Black Phantom. But I think Fire Lord, Scorpio, and Dragon Bolt are comparable in complexity in either of those two sets. The $25 Scorpio and Evo XL Machine manage to exceed that level of complexity.

 

Furno Bike doesn't really have any kind of lead on later vehicle sets like Speeda Demon or Jet Rocka, nor on the similarly-priced Witch Doctor (who is easily on par with or even ahead of the 2008 Takanuva in terms of complexity). Drop Ship, on the other hand, probably surpasses all other vehicle sets in complexity (narrowly beating Jet Rocka), but it also surpasses all other Hero Factory sets in price, with a hefty $50 price tag.

 

I feel like in general, when complexity is lost in some places, it is regained in others. Post-2011 Hero Factory figures typically have far more complex weapon designs than most BIONICLE figures, for instance, with far fewer single-piece prefab weapons and more that are assembled from multiple pieces. The complexity of early BIONICLE canister sets was largely concentrated inside the torsos. Later BIONICLE sets spread this out to other parts of the body like the limbs. Sets like Ackar and Mistika Toa Tahu may have incredibly simple torso designs compared to the Bohrok, but their legs, arms, and weapons are far more complex.

 

But looking just at Hero Factory, I feel like there has been an almost universal shift towards greater complexity. While it might have seemed more BIONICLE-like to people whose attention zeroes in on pins and axles as a sign of complexity, the small and mid-size Hero Factory sets of 2010 were downright pitiful in their simplicity, and pretty much every subsequent year of sets has managed to advance on the complexity of the sets before them. In 2011 alone, heroes practically doubled in piece count from the pitiful seventeen-piece heroes of 2010, and went from pieces specialized to the point of being near-useless for anything else to pieces that are still amazingly useful three years later. The mid-size villains, too, went from a mean piece count of 48 to a mean piece count of 60 in just one wave.

 

As you say, the 2014 sets are setting a new bar for complexity. I would not hesitate to say that Furno Jet Machine is more complex than any mid-size BIONICLE and Hero Factory sets have ever been. This development isn't out of nowhere, either. By piece count, last year's Stormer already beat all but two BIONICLE canister sets: Toa Mahri Kongu and Mistika Toa Tahu. And Evo and Bulk from the 2013 lineup had higher piece counts than any of the Toa Metru, Vahki, Toa Hordika, or Visorak, despite being almost identical in price with inflation taking into account. So from what I'm seeing, Hero Factory is on the up-and-up. I'm not perfectly satisfied with what we have now — Witch Doctor and Dragon Bolt are the only "titan sets" that have managed to convey the same elegance of design for me as BIONICLE titan sets like Roodaka, Brutaka, and Takanuva — but I'm still seeing movement in a very positive direction.

Edited January 6, 2014 by Aanchir: Rachira of Time

[Kopekemaster]

-snip-

Again, you have to compare sets that are similar in size and price point. Since 2011, the small Hero Factory sets have been way more complex than the crummy seventeen-piece heroes from 2010, though in 2012 and 2013 the increases in complexity also came with $1 increases in price. There's not a single small hero or villain from 2012 or 2013 that could be considered remotely close to the mind-numbing simplicity of the first-wave Hero sets. I'd even go so far as to say that the $9 Toxic Reapa, Jawblade, and Thornraxx sets from early 2012 are more complex in their design than most of the $13 Hero Factory villains from 2010. Slightly lower piece counts, but less of those pieces are wasted on simple pins and axles that don't really add any meaningful complexity to the design.

-snip-

 

Holy cow that was approaching a Bonesiii-sized post.

I see the point you make through your post. Truly, there were multiple examples when it went pretty much the opposite way as I have been talking about. I'm just meaning overall, Bionicle sets (especially towards the beginning) were more complex.

 

Now about the price point thing- I might as well point out that the original Toa sold for six or seven dollars. Just sayin'. It is a good point you bring up though, though somewhat of an unstable one. The agori/av-matoran sets, on average, had more pieces than the Stars sets (as I remember, anyway).

 

Oh dear. It would seem I've been sucked into this conversation now. Tally ho!

[Aanchir]

Holy cow that was approaching a Bonesiii-sized post.

I see the point you make through your post. Truly, there were multiple examples when it went pretty much the opposite way as I have been talking about. I'm just meaning overall, Bionicle sets (especially towards the beginning) were more complex.

 

Now about the price point thing- I might as well point out that the original Toa sold for six or seven dollars. Just sayin'. It is a good point you bring up though, though somewhat of an unstable one. The agori/av-matoran sets, on average, had more pieces than the Stars sets (as I remember, anyway).

 

Oh dear. It would seem I've been sucked into this conversation now. Tally ho!

You're correct about the Toa Mata being cheaper than later BIONICLE sets, which is part of why I wasn't using size or piece count as a factor in my BIONICLE comparison. Generally, in BIONICLE, canister sets were the main characters of the year, the most heavily marketed characters of the year, the most plentiful characters, and the foundation on which the year's success was built. There's a reason why so much money went into new parts and packaging for canister sets each wave — it was being made up in sales. So to save myself some trouble taking averages and calculating for inflation, I sort of treat canister sets as a benchmark for each year.

 

I know for sure that the sets were indeed getting bigger and pricier as the years went on — even today, the Toa Mata would be less than $10 apiece, much less than any sets released in 2004 or later would cost in today's dollars. Increases in the size of the sets led to increasing prices, but the actual complexity of mid-size sets remained pretty much static. That's another thing I love about today's Hero Factory sets. They've gradually brought things back up to a tolerable level of complexity, but small and mid-size Hero Factory sets are still not much different in height than a Toa Mata or Toa Nuva, so less of that cost is being wasted on giving the sets increasingly gangly and exaggerated proportions. I was pleased as punch when I got my first Hero Factory set, Stormer 2.0, and realized that he almost exactly the same as a typical Toa Mata in both height and piece count. In a sense, it felt like set design had come full-circle, and I'm glad Hero Factory managed to keep that baseline height in check.

 

And actually, the Stars had more parts than the Av-Matoran and Agori, and more diversity in their design as well. The 2008 Matoran all had 14 parts, besides Radiak who had 16. Basically the bare minimum for a skeleton with nine points of articulation, plus two weapons, a jetpack/wing piece, and a mask. The Agori ramped up the diversity a bit as far as weapons and builds were concerned, and had a slightly higher mean piece count. One of the sets, Atakus, had just 13 pieces, but the others (Tarduk with 17 pieces, Zesk with 16, Berix with 15) made up for it. The Stars took the diversity even further and increased piece counts. The lowest piece count among them was the Piraka (15 pieces), then Rahkshi (18 pieces), then Tahu and Gresh (19 pieces), and finally Takanuva and Skrall (21 pieces).

 

Other than the Piraka, the Stars piece counts were all higher than any of the Agori or Av-Matoran, and also higher than any first-wave Hero Factory hero piece counts (17 pieces for the rookies and 16 for the veterans). So don't think I'm trying to suggest that things have just been on a straight upward curve since the early days of BIONICLE! I'm an optimist, but I also try to be a realist. Hero Factory's first wave was a major disruption, and that increased simplicity and overspecialization is one of the reasons I didn't bother collecting Hero Factory sets until 2011 when the new building system started to suggest things were improving again.

Edited January 7, 2014 by Aanchir: Rachira of Time