First year ever that i'm buying nothing... car+car+car=coma.

[howitzer]

On 11/13/2025 at 2:08 AM, Bartybum said:

We're quite a small pool - there's very few of us in this forum that regularly leave comments

Yeah, it's few dozen people at most who are active long time commenters in the Technic forum. For a global corporation with millions and millions of customers that's not very big sample of opinions to draw from, no matter how loudly we complain.

18 hours ago, Timorzelorzworz said:

For decades, people in this forum are screaming for a Technic JCB model. Was any JCB model released since there? No. I don't believe that TLG invests time and resources in reading forums to collect statistical data. The past has shown that they are not interested in community opinions and wishes and that they won't be either. They design and produce models that the market regulates. TLG shows several patterns from the late '90s, but compared to the past they won't change things and stick to what is working well. Cars are selling good, especially the smaller 15 stud wides for pocket money. They are an addition to the lineup, not a replacement for other models. Since we have these many cars, each lineup has grown significantly per year. If TLG were doing badly, they would look for a change, but obviously they don't. Personally, I'm not a big fan of this trend either, but as long as there is demand for the models, nothing will change. The small 15 stud cars are quick money for TLG, even the ones with the color swaps. Try it in stud.io, make a model with a good 200 pages instructions and then change the models color. The instructions remains, the color has been changed. Zero effort for a complete new model that sales. As long as people support this laziness of overpaid danish employee by purchasing these models, nothing will change.

There might be other reasons like licencing why TLG hasn't released a JCB model. But it's true that TLG has other priorities like making money on what has been shown to work in that regard, rather than catering to opinions of a very very small minority. I, too, wish for something better than endless cars (which I'm not buying out of principle at this point) but the trend is clear: Technic sets aren't for me anymore.

[allanp]

1 hour ago, howitzer said:

Yeah, it's few dozen people at most who are active long time commenters in the Technic forum. For a global corporation with millions and millions of customers that's not very big sample of opinions to draw from, no matter how loudly we complain.

There might be other reasons like licencing why TLG hasn't released a JCB model. But it's true that TLG has other priorities like making money on what has been shown to work in that regard, rather than catering to opinions of a very very small minority. I, too, wish for something better than endless cars (which I'm not buying out of principle at this point) but the trend is clear: Technic sets aren't for me anymore.

On the other hand, if our opinions are aligned with the wider public then it still may be very useful for them to hear us out because when don't just say our opinions, we also explain at great length why we have those opinions. The Volvo excavator is currently rated at 2 starts on Legos website. The wider public might just think it doesn't appeal to them without fully understanding the reasons why. They might not be able able to know or tell TLG what they want until they see it in front of them. Why would they? They're not fanatics like us. They're not going to know the full potential of Technic like we do. We might be a small group but our knowledge and understanding of what the Technic theme is truly capable of may still be greater than a vastly larger group of people. We know exactly what we want and can describe in great detail how to achieve it, even going so far as to design and 3D print our own custom pieces, which I still believe directly led to the newer gearbox pieces, which is fantastic! 

As for the much desired flagship JCB model, I'm kind of glad they haven't released it in the past few years because their recent design philosophy of replacing authentic mechanisms that work well with over priced and inauthentic app control with lackluster performance and linear actuators simply isn't good enough for the mighty JCB. I have heard a well known Technic designer state directly that they want to do a JCB, and they loved my suggestion that it should have lots of pneumatics. But any sort of backhoe doesn't come round very often. They must not f**k it up. I'd rather they waited until the design philosophy allows for it to be the Arocs killer it absolutely can be. Ideally that is something they would work up to, like maybe start with something simpler like an RC pneumatic forklift truck or front end loader. 

[Jundis]

19 hours ago, Timorzelorzworz said:

Technic JCB model

Sry...

[gyenesvi]

48 minutes ago, allanp said:

On the other hand, if our opinions are aligned with the wider public then it still may be very useful for them to hear us out because when don't just say our opinions, we also explain at great length why we have those opinions. The Volvo excavator is currently rated at 2 starts on Legos website. The wider public might just think it doesn't appeal to them without fully understanding the reasons why. They might not be able able to know or tell TLG what they want until they see it in front of them. Why would they? They're not fanatics like us. They're not going to know the full potential of Technic like we do. We might be a small group but our knowledge and understanding of what the Technic theme is truly capable of may still be greater than a vastly larger group of people. We know exactly what we want and can describe in great detail how to achieve it, even going so far as to design and 3D print our own custom pieces, which I still believe directly led to the newer gearbox pieces, which is fantastic!

I tend to agree with what @allanp is articulating here. There are many builders out there, but the distribution of talent is not uniform, far from it. There are a lot of people who just buy and build sets and MOCs, post them on FB, maybe criticize them, but don't make anything on their own. They don't even know what parts exist in technic. Then there are people who make their own MOCs, but most of them copy ideas from other MOC designers, tinker with the looks and make some modifications. And finally there are the MOC designers who push the limits and design new stuff, concepts that have never been built before. You know, those people who know all technic parts by heart and know exactly what can and cannot be built, and maybe even design and 3d print their own. That's a very small minority, but those are exactly the ones that TLG should be monitoring for ideas of improvement. And exactly those people are highly concentrated on this forum. So we may be a small minority, but exactly the important one. This phenomenon has been observed in many areas of life, it is called the Pareto principle: the majority of the effects comes from a small minority of causes. So if TLG are smart, they do monitor this minority.

48 minutes ago, allanp said:

As for the much desired flagship JCB model, I'm kind of glad they haven't released it in the past few years because their recent design philosophy of replacing authentic mechanisms that work well with over priced and inauthentic app control with lackluster performance and linear actuators simply isn't good enough for the mighty JCB. I have heard a well known Technic designer state directly that they want to do a JCB, and they loved my suggestion that it should have lots of pneumatics. But any sort of backhoe doesn't come round very often. They must not f**k it up. I'd rather they waited until the design philosophy allows for it to be the Arocs killer it absolutely can be. Ideally that is something they would work up to, like maybe start with something simpler like an RC pneumatic forklift truck or front end loader. 

Also agree on this one. They probably know exactly that they must not f**k this one up, so they might hold this back until they can come out with a good implementation that aims to live up to the expectations, which are pretty high. Also, now they do have the JCB license, so we know that at least that's not a blocker.

20 hours ago, Timorzelorzworz said:

The small 15 stud cars are quick money for TLG, even the ones with the color swaps. Try it in stud.io, make a model with a good 200 pages instructions and then change the models color. The instructions remains, the color has been changed. Zero effort for a complete new model that sales. As long as people support this laziness of overpaid danish employee by purchasing these models, nothing will change.

Well, this kind of easy money is actually very good for us MOC builders too, because it is providing us with parts in colors that would not exist otherwise. And these models are probably not replacing other models, rather they are an addition to the lineup. I think this is a good strategy for having a better parts palette and earning a bit more money too, so it's a win-win.

[Timorzelorzworz]

35 minutes ago, gyenesvi said:

And these models are probably not replacing other models, rather they are an addition to the lineup. I think this is a good strategy for having a better parts palette and earning a bit more money too, so it's a win-win.

This is absolutely true. But on the other side, people complaining about too much cars in the lineup for every year over and over again. It is an endless story.

[Timorzelorzworz]

3 hours ago, gyenesvi said:

This phenomenon has been observed in many areas of life, it is called the Pareto principle: the majority of the effects comes from a small minority of causes. So if TLG are smart, they do monitor this minority.

This is very interesting. Back in the 2000s, when things were bad for them, that's exactly what they did. However, in the present time they see no need for change. It is a very sad fact, but they are not interested in the people, the community, who bring in the money and who supported TLG by buying the sets and made it great again. Perhaps we should open a new topic where everyone can give their predictions about the future, where the lineup will be in 5 or 10 years.

[Xfing]

I just ran an overview of Technic over the years to select one set per year to buy and gotta say, for a few years Lego have completely replaced a lot of their models such as supercars, excavators, bulldozers etc with real-life licensed models, which makes them lose a lot of appeal in my eyes. I much preferred unlicensed, original ones, but what can you do, apparently these sell better or something. Still, 2025 in particular has at least some unlicensed small to mid-size sets such as the Lunar Outpost Moon Rover or that deep sea research sub, interesting things both worth buying in my opinion. I actively avoid licensed sets and cars when looking for stuff to buy and there's still quite a bit to choose from in the 1000-pc range in the most recent era of Technic. 

I'd personally say that the most egregious year would be 2017, where they introduced the panels - several of their models did what they could to show off the panels, which felt like they were force-feeding us those things. I suppose that was also the year where studless Technic truly transitioned form skeletal to covered - which I don't think was such a good thing, given how that both obfuscates the mechanisms and System bricks are still better at accomplishing that same task. Many have noticed that Technic has stopped being about functions and started being about aesthetics more and more over the years, meanwhile Cada has them beat on both counts (plus they don't shy away from giving their designers free rein to use studded parts, which makes the models even better). 

Edited November 15 by Xfing

[Bartybum]

14 hours ago, Xfing said:

I'd personally say that the most egregious year would be 2017, where they introduced the panels - several of their models did what they could to show off the panels, which felt like they were force-feeding us those things.

Maybe not 2017 specifically, but around the years 2016-2018 there is definitely a change in the feel of the theme that I can't quite put. Around then I remember noticing more and more sets that I either didn't like the look of, or thought were kinda just lacking in execution

[howitzer]

Rough terrain crane in 2018 was the last unlicensed flagship set, and after that came only a few larger unlicensed sets such as the car transporter (2019), mobile crane and cement mixer (2020), heavy duty tow truck (2021), firefighter aircraft (2023) and the space-themed original sets in 2024 and 2025. I feel that while there has been some nice licensed sets, overall this reliance in licenses makes the set design worse as the designers must prioritize looks and functionality is secondary - opposite to the spirit of Technic where interesting functionality should always be a priority. 

[Bartybum]

On 11/16/2025 at 10:25 PM, howitzer said:

I feel that while there has been some nice licensed sets, overall this reliance in licenses makes the set design worse as the designers must prioritize looks and functionality is secondary - opposite to the spirit of Technic where interesting functionality should always be a priority.

"No we can't add this feature to the crane/bulldozer/excavator/blahblah, the real one doesn't have it"  It's such a godawful constraint.

[Ngoc Nguyen]

On 11/16/2025 at 6:25 PM, howitzer said:

opposite to the spirit of Technic where interesting functionality should always be a priority. 

Indeed. A real tracked loader probably doesnt have rotating cabin and upward door and two-speed rear winch, but 42094 has it, and it's very cool to me.

[allanp]

On 11/16/2025 at 11:25 AM, howitzer said:

overall this reliance in licenses makes the set design worse as the designers must prioritize looks and functionality is secondary

It has been this way for a long time, even before licenses. I remember the promotional material for the 2007 RC bulldozer talking about authenticity, and that authenticity meant how much it looks like a bulldozer. And yes, I know, it is important for it to look good. But looks is not authenticity and authenticity is not looks. In all aspects of life when we talk about authenticity we're talking about something deeper than looks. Despite that, if something is truly authentic, be it a mechanism or a smile, it will look good without even trying. With all their talk of authenticity they do seem to go out of their way to make things look unlike the real thing with their multicolored pins, gears and axles all over the place.

So as much as I like non licensed sets, I don't think it is as much to blame for the current state of things as the overall design philosophy. But it would be nice if the idea for what they want to build came first, before the license. Like maybe they want to build a 4x4 vehicle and they want it to have live axles, a main stick shift gearbox, a transfer box with options for 2 wheel drive and 4 wheel drive and lockable diffs just as an example. Only after deciding on that should they then go looking for real world vehicles that have that exact feature list. If there aren't any then make it unlicensed. Just like with RC, a license is nice but it shouldn't be prioritized over making it a great Technic set. If a Technic set isn't good enough without those things then it won't be good enough with it.

Edited November 20 by allanp

[Jay Psi]

It feels like this has been asked before - is there any reliable data on the impact of licences on sales of Technic sets, ideally compared to other themes?

It very much feels like the licence push is the primary consideration for Technic sets, which quite heavily dictates (restricts?) the potential of the set.

[howitzer]

20 hours ago, allanp said:

It has been this way for a long time, even before licenses. I remember the promotional material for the 2007 RC bulldozer talking about authenticity, and that authenticity meant how much it looks like a bulldozer. And yes, I know, it is important for it to look good. But looks is not authenticity and authenticity is not looks. In all aspects of life when we talk about authenticity we're talking about something deeper than looks. Despite that, if something is truly authentic, be it a mechanism or a smile, it will look good without even trying. With all their talk of authenticity they do seem to go out of their way to make things look unlike the real thing with their multicolored pins, gears and axles all over the place.

So as much as I like non licensed sets, I don't think it is as much to blame for the current state of things as the overall design philosophy. But it would be nice if the idea for what they want to build came first, before the license. Like maybe they want to build a 4x4 vehicle and they want it to have live axles, a main stick shift gearbox, a transfer box with options for 2 wheel drive and 4 wheel drive and lockable diffs just as an example. Only after deciding on that should they then go looking for real world vehicles that have that exact feature list. If there aren't any then make it unlicensed. Just like with RC, a license is nice but it shouldn't be prioritized over making it a great Technic set. If a Technic set isn't good enough without those things then it won't be good enough with it.

I wasn't talking about authenticity though - there's a real limit how authentic you can make a toy after all. It's also something I don't care much about - in my opinion Technic should be about interesting mechanisms, be they accurate representations of real things or not. GBC's are some of the most interesting Lego things out there and they don't represent anything real usually, while fake engines in car sets might do a decent job representing an internal combustion engine, but it's not something that makes or breaks my decision to buy some set. I also realize that linear actuators are not mechanically authentic - pneumatics are much better at that, but LA's have advantages which make them suit better for some applications than pneumatics as has been discussed many times before in this forum.

Anyway, my point was that licenses force sets into a specific form that is mainly aesthetic and only minimally based on functionality - all car sets have four wheels and some have suspension or fake engine or something, but since 42056 with its paddle shifter I don't think any of them has really broken any ground functionally - at most they have only refined old ones but mostly they are just repeats of the same functions over and over with only real difference being on looks.