Genuine Question About Rating Sets

[Karalora]

I have noticed in my years here that there is often a broad consensus among experienced fans whether a given set is satisfying or disappointing, but I've never been very clear on the criteria for making these assessments and how they are applied. Some factors that often seem to be mentioned:

• Piece count per price--about ten cents (U.S.) per piece seems to be the benchmark for good value for money (although I think we're overdue a recalibration of that what with unavoidable inflation).
• Number and quality of minifigures included with the set--obviously only applies to minifigure-based themes! I'm not certain what the desired ratio of minifigures per price or size is, or what factors make a minifigure good or disappointing apart from very basic things like how detailed the printing is.
• Stickers vs. prints--we have a whole thread explaining why prints are superior! Stickers instead of proper prints tend to reduce the perceived quality of a set.

And that's about as far as I've gotten. I can't figure out what people tend to consider a satisfying building experience, what they look for in specific parts selections, etc. My opinions of sets tend to be either "Looks good to me!" or "Nah, not my thing," and I feel like most people here are operating on a higher level of sophistication with their assessments.

So what does make a set "good" or "bad"?

 

[aFrInati0n]

From how I understand it, those may be the main concerns for people.. I understand those as some sorts of metric which are / may be applicable over a wider variation of sets to make them comparable.

Everybody needs to pick his own values when it comes to judging products - so those may be helpful to keep in mind as comparables, but to me they are not really taking any sets' good idea(s) into consideration.

I would phrase it for myself like this: If any set can convince me to want to have it, this may already be enough reason for me.

(This may be a theoretical construct as I am more a part scavenger who would even buy a new set to get his hands on new parts, rather then really building the set..)

[Mylenium]

3 hours ago, Karalora said:

• Piece count per price--about ten cents (U.S.) per piece seems to be the benchmark for good value for money (although I think we're overdue a recalibration of that what with unavoidable inflation).

Not really. Prices for the materials, mold making and the actual manufacturing have been steadily going down for decades due to automation and overall more efficient production. It's just once again LEGO's marketing machine working overtime telling us that everything has gotten more expensive.

3 hours ago, Karalora said:

• Number and quality of minifigures included with the set--obviously only applies to minifigure-based themes! I'm not certain what the desired ratio of minifigures per price or size is, or what factors make a minifigure good or disappointing apart from very basic things like how detailed the printing is.

I don't care and even if I did, why should it matter? Same as above - even an elaborate minifig costs pennies to produce. LEGO - and by extension fan groups - are just pushing a certain narrative here and have an agenda.

3 hours ago, Karalora said:

• Stickers vs. prints--we have a whole thread explaining why prints are superior! Stickers instead of proper prints tend to reduce the perceived quality of a set.

Now we're getting somewhere. Stickers imply laziness as in "LEGO couldn't be bothered with the logistics." and of course this comes across as playing it cheap. That and their inconsistency in deciding what to print plus the poor quality of their stickers, in particular colors not matching with the plastic. They're also simply looking bad on this because their competitors prove that high quality prints can be done without breaking the bank, yet they choose to tell us otherwise every time. There is no necessity to print everything and one could debate the reasons endlessly, but again, it's more this "We don't give a shit about our customers." attitude that this communicates bothers me most.

3 hours ago, Karalora said:

So what does make a set "good" or "bad"?

That's probably impossible to answer as everyone will have their own views, but a few things I can point out that make a set bad for me:

• color vomit per se - too many randomly colored pieces, including structural elements, for no reason
• visible color vomit - I just hate differently colored brackets in the wrong places or when interior elements shine through
• bad build sequence - jumping back and forth on a model for no good reason, not securing "free" elements before moving on --> commonly an issue with Friends buildings for instance
• excessive use of Technic elements in conventional models - Why ruin nice models with visible pins or connectors, when everything should be smooth?
• "floaty" elements like slopes and tiles only being attached to a single stud
• inadequate volume and curvature approximation e.g. on Creator 3in1 animals
• the designers not understanding basic design principles like "orientation" and "flow" and constructing the models in the wrong direction

I'm sure I could ramble on and find more points, but it's early in the morning and I didn't have my tea yet...

Mylenium

 

[JesseNight]

• Price per piece is definitely a big one for many, including myself. It doesn't make a set good or bad though, it's just a factor in whether I find it worth spending on.
• Obviously it has to look good. And accurate, if they try to represent something. (sometimes it's painfully obvious when a designer just didn't understand the model they were asked to build)
• Stable build that doesn't have parts falling off when grabbing it.
• Printed parts over stickers. Unfortunately not always a choice.
• Interesting build that's not too easy and definitely not too repetitive.
• Visible color vomit mentioned by Mylenium is a good one, but I feel we cannot get around that anymore most of the time.

(Note: some prefer price per weight over price per brick, due to some pieces being vastly bigger or more complex than others, which could affect value)

Minifigs rarely hold much value to me.

Edited May 21 by JesseNight

[Karalora]

I'm curious about the distaste for single-stud attachments. I understand how it means smaller parts (and therefore less value) and potentially a more fragile connection, but on the other hand, if you want finer detail--which seems to be a consideration for many AFOLs--you kind of need the parts and attachments to be smaller. How do you square these competing factors?

[Mylenium]

7 hours ago, Karalora said:

I'm curious about the distaste for single-stud attachments. I understand how it means smaller parts (and therefore less value) and potentially a more fragile connection, but on the other hand, if you want finer detail--which seems to be a consideration for many AFOLs--you kind of need the parts and attachments to be smaller. How do you square these competing factors?

There's nothing wrong with e.g. a 1 x 2 tile on a single stud if it rests against a surface underneath. If that was all there were then I wouldn't be complaining. However, in recent years they have started using "hanging connections" a lot like e.g. those 1 x 2 curved wedges with the 45 degree cutoff protruding from models in place where they can be easily levered off. Again, that's still fine for flower petals and a few other uses, but not necessarily the fender of a car or similar. This is exacerbated by daisy-chaining such fragile constructs for instance on Speed Champions models. Formula 1 cars are a good example here. A curved 2 x 3 wedge will attach to one stud and to that same wedge there's another 1 x 1 mounted that in turn holds another loosely connected wedge or pointed tile to emulate a winglet or whatever. And since all elements have play you at the very least get gaps that you spend unnecessary time on by aligning the elements. Or take the fictitious Lamborghini ( 76923) where even the larger 1 x 3 wedges hang on a single stud. That is very ambitious, to put it mildly. Another example for "bad" single  stud connections are those pesky 1 x 1 x 5 column bricks (and similar elements) they like to use a lot in Friends sets. Combined with my other peeve about build order where those pillar elements will stand freely and you break them off over and over this is also at times a major headache. None of this is the end of the world and naturally there will always be limitations in brick-build models, but the parts of my brain that operate in engineering mode would often like to see improvements and they are possible. It also rubs me the wrong way because LEGO always claim how proud they are to have a separate build verification department, yet somehow such problems slip through way too often for my taste.

Mylenium

Edited May 21 by Mylenium

[Toastie]

1 hour ago, Mylenium said:

This is exacerbated by daisy-chaining such fragile constructs for instance on Speed Champions models. Formula 1 cars are a good example here. A curved 2 x 3 wedge will attach to one stud and to that same wedge there's another 1 x 1 mounted that in turn holds another loosely connected wedge or pointed tile to emulate a winglet or whatever. And since all elements have play you at the very least get gaps that you spend unnecessary time on by aligning the elements. Or take the fictitious Lamborghini ( 76923) where even the larger 1 x 3 wedges hang on a single stud. That is very ambitious, to put it mildly. Another example for "bad" single  stud connections are those pesky 1 x 1 x 5 column bricks (and similar elements) they like to use a lot in Friends sets. Combined with my other peeve about build order where those pillar elements will stand freely and you break them off over and over this is also at times a major headache

That is of course absolutely true. But what does it tell?

I don't buy any of this crap since years if not decades. Why not? Because I don't want to put it very, >very< carefully on a shelf. Or into a vitrine. Be it denoted as playable ("Speed Champions" and the like) or not - I (just guess of course) think these flimsy builds go on shelves - for the joy of ... collecting dust.

Best
Thorsten   

[Karalora]

I want to circle back to something @Mylenium mentioned earlier:

19 hours ago, Mylenium said:

• color vomit per se - too many randomly colored pieces, including structural elements, for no reason

Is there a distinction between reasonable color variety and "color vomit"? If so, what is that distinction? What are some sets that exhibit this undesirable feature?

[Mylenium]

On 5/22/2026 at 3:23 AM, Karalora said:

Is there a distinction between reasonable color variety and "color vomit"? If so, what is that distinction? What are some sets that exhibit this undesirable feature?

"Reasonable" usually covers elements that are color-coded, anyway, like gears, pins and connectors. In addition I have no issue with occasional colored pieces that indicate orientation of the model or where critical connection points are, but that is already debatable at times. For me the line is crossed when it gets really random and unnecessary. I recently built City set 60489 (Car vs. Jet Race) and there are for instance Lime Green and Red 1 x 2 round plates under the wedge slopes on the sides. "It helps the kids." Yes, true, but those plates could have been White and Black just as well because up to this point there are no other elements attached to the brackets they go on (step 14 in the building instructions) and those brackets are Light Bluish Grey, so visual distinguish-ability in the instructions is not the issue. You can of course find many more examples. Another case are Botanicals with their inconsistent use of different shades of greens or using Perl Gold clips for attaching petals. To me this simply feels unnecessary and lazy. And of course many Technic models take the crown. I don't build this stuff anymore, but it baffles me how LEGO always seem to find a way to use Dark Azure and Lime Green on those models when you watch and read reviews. Again - a little color is okay, but they have taken this too far.

Mylenium

Edited May 23 by Mylenium
fixed some grammar

[JesseNight]

3 hours ago, Mylenium said:

"It helps the kids."

That's what I thought initially. Until I started seeing it on plenty of 18+ models. Even some Icons scale models where it is really visible (like 10300 BTTF DeLorean).
And on another note... I never missed it as a 80s kid. Probably would have had the same opinion about as I have now too, considering even at young age I wanted details to be correct and accurate.

As for Technic models... I understand they wanted to make a well visible difference between friction and no friction pins, but there's no need to color code pins/axle combinations and longer/shorter pins because we can just see the difference. All the blue dots over an entirely black model sticks out like a sore thumb. Again, the 80s show it was possible differently too. Friction pins were black, no friction pins were gray. Length or having an axle side didn't matter. Subtle and neat.

[aFrInati0n]

At least they may be missing the market of offering those parts for enthusiasts with their consistant decision of sticking to the color schema. For colored bricks that could be achieved by availablity, for technic pins that may unfortunately be not so true.

[Karalora]

5 hours ago, Mylenium said:

 I recently built City set 60489 (Car vs. Jet Race) and there are for instance Lime Green and Red 1 x 2 round plates under the wedge slopes on the sides. "It helps the kids." Yes, true, but those plates could have been White and Black just as well 

Looking at the official pics of this set on lego.com, it doesn't seem like the lime green and red plates show on the outside of the finished model. What makes it a problem if they don't show?

[danth]

3 hours ago, Karalora said:

Looking at the official pics of this set on lego.com, it doesn't seem like the lime green and red plates show on the outside of the finished model. What makes it a problem if they don't show?

I don't have much of a dog in this fight, but I would much prefer to get colors in the outer color scheme of a set than random colors inside. Because I like to do alt builds. If the colors inside are random, it makes it really hard to reuse them in an alt build, because they won't match the colors in the rest of the set. 

[danth]

Anyway, interesting topic. I've been asking myself this same question, but specifically about looks.

What makes a set look better?

There are many sets that look pleasing to my eye. They look, in a word, "classy". They don't look cheap, or messy, or rough. They don't look, in a word, "janky".

Good examples of nice, classy looking sets:

Both have nice color blocking, not many visible studs, look "solid" and not splindly or gappy, and any texture is provided by bricks not stickers. Neither have random "visual noise", all the detail looks intentional and not gratuitous. 

Here is the opposite extreme: a "janky" set:

Other than the lion's head, there is no color blocking. The framework is exposed. It looks unfinished. There are random wedge parts here and there with little meaning. It's spindly, with pieces stretched too thin across a large area. 

Here's another kind of set I don't like. It doesn't look classy:

This is pretty subjective of course, but the large Bionicle-style parts don't look like Lego to me. They look tacky. I also think gold and silver bricks generally look gaudy. I much prefer non-metalic colors. Pearly metalic colors will always remind me of cheap Megablocks from the early 2000s. The stickers everywhere also cheapen the look. 

Here's another example of more classy vs less classy:

The first creator castle had stronger color blocking. The few masonry bricks were used to great effect and look deliberate.

In the second castle, look at the lower right wall section: it has random dark gray bits here and there that make it hard to look at, harder to see the wall as anything but a jumble of separate pieces. The log cabin bricks were a terrible choice. Also, too many small pieces together will always look bad if they are meant to represent a single surface. (This is a Creator set so maybe sacrifices were made for part re-use in the other builds, but that doesn't matter for this conversation).

Edited May 22 by danth

[Wolfpack]

5 hours ago, danth said:

Here is the opposite extreme: a "janky" set:

Other than the lion's head, there is no color blocking. The framework is exposed. It looks unfinished. There are random wedge parts here and there with little meaning. It's spindly, with pieces stretched too thin across a large area. 

Hm, I kinda prefer this one, except maybe for the head. It is obvious it is lego and I can see some alternative builds. But that is the beautiful thing about art, it is subjective.

[Karalora]

@danth I think the word you're looking for with the unattractive sets might be "busy"? Too many extending parts and "gribbly bits," colors and texture markings leading the eye away from, rather than toward, what should be the focal points.

Exposed studs don't bother me much--they make it look appropriately "LEGO" and make small adjustments to the structure easier, and covering them can inflate the piece count (and therefore the price) without much benefit to the overall size. But "busy," messy designs can be very unpleasant to look at.

I think it's important to draw a distinction between bad design and designs that just don't speak to us personally. Unstable builds are bad design. Stickers are, if not bad design per se, certainly cheap design compared to a proper print. The above examples of "janky" design are bad design...although there may be concepts for which these design principles work better.

7 hours ago, danth said:

I don't have much of a dog in this fight, but I would much prefer to get colors in the outer color scheme of a set than random colors inside. Because I like to do alt builds. If the colors inside are random, it makes it really hard to reuse them in an alt build, because they won't match the colors in the rest of the set. 

Okay, that makes sense. Since I've never gotten into alt builds, it's not a concern for me, and if anything I like having a wider variety of colors when it comes time to break the set down into the collection.

[danth]

4 hours ago, Karalora said:

@danth I think the word you're looking for with the unattractive sets might be "busy"? Too many extending parts and "gribbly bits," colors and texture markings leading the eye away from, rather than toward, what should be the focal points.

Maybe. I think the Chima tank example was "janky" (unfinished, spindly, and possibly fragile), the Ninjago jet was "gaudy" (looks silly and too shiny/metallic and has big overwrought parts), and the Horse Knight Castle was "messy" (too many colors/pieces trying to represent a unified structure).

Here's a really good example of something looking "classy". 

This is a MOC by BlindFire321. It's just simple shapes - wedges, tiles, and and curved slopes, etc. No need to ruin it with stickers. It just looks so perfect and clean and finished.

Here is a Creator set that I think is just as good:

Obviously the subject matter is important. Clean and smooth doesn't work for something like a coral reef. 

[danth]

So my three examples. The "janky" one is from over a decade ago. The Ninjago example is the most subjective (I can't justify not liking big Bionicle style parts or metallic gold, I just don't). And the Creator example is, well, Creator -- those parts that make up the "messy" wall might be important for the other builds.

What's my point? Lego designs currently are really good. I just looked through the entire 2025 catalog, and I can only find a few that might be very slightly janky/messy. Most sets that I don't love the look of are for aesthetic differences. 

[Mylenium]

17 hours ago, Karalora said:

Looking at the official pics of this set on lego.com, it doesn't seem like the lime green and red plates show on the outside of the finished model. What makes it a problem if they don't show?

Well, one could argue it hampers customization and re-usability of the pieces. What happens if you were to change something on the car and suddenly those pieces are visible? And while this particular example may not be the worst, you can find enough others. Sure, if you never get into actually modifying sets, you may be eternally happy and never even notice this, but many people add slight enhancements to e.g. fit cars into their existing city layouts and then they run into this problem. Or one use case our "Held der Steine" likes to ramble on about on YouTube is that you may get to see those underside if you put your models in a glass showcase or similar stuff. He's not wrong about that. Sitting on your couch, glancing up to your trophy shelf and then seeing all those colors would at least be unsatisfying if not massively frustrating. Naturally, it's a "Your mileage may vary." thing and not everybody will be too disturbed by it, but there are enough people out there who are. And again in a "lead by example" manner competing companies just don't do it as much and sometimes go out of their way to consistently color all the elements required for a given model. Not to go off too much on a tangent, but this extensive color coding could also be seen as LEGO not trusting our intelligence. Yes, spatial orientation issues and color blindness exist, but then the antithesis to that could be five-year-olds building complex models on YouTube. If you get my point - it's a matter of balance and for my part LEGO are leaning way too much into assuming everyone is lost and never has built with bricks, trying to be a little too helpful.

Mylenium

[JesseNight]

On 5/22/2026 at 2:46 PM, Karalora said:

Looking at the official pics of this set on lego.com, it doesn't seem like the lime green and red plates show on the outside of the finished model. What makes it a problem if they don't show?

If they don't show, it's not as big of a problem, yet I'd still prefer color consistency and accuracy.
If I look at my earlier mentioned example (10300 - Back To The Future Time Machine from Icons), it was really bad there. Not on the official pics of the set, I'm sure marketing does take care picking the best pictures. Reality of the set is they don't show at very specific angles, but at any other angles, they do. Putting the DeLorean in flight mode from the second movie on a stand, it becomes absolutely horrible.
(I can show you pictures if you wish)

[danth]

16 hours ago, Karalora said:

if anything I like having a wider variety of colors when it comes time to break the set down into the collection.

I forgot to ask about this. Why?

If all your parts are different colors, you can't really build anything in a desired color scheme. 

[Kit Figsto]

To me, the build experience is only really a factor if it's either utilizing very clever techniques, or if it's especially tricky (generally in a bad way - overcomplicated, fragile, frustrating, etc., though this doesn't really happen often, especially in this day and age).  I do find it especially satisfying when a set just comes together in a way that you don't really expect (this happens a lot in vehicles - I recently built the Alpha Team Tundra Tracker, and the way that it goes from a Technic frame to "suddenly this is a car" was interesting to me), or if pieces fit together at unusual angles (for example, the MBS Cantina has a lot of triangular sections where angled bricks perfectly fit into gaps, which I think is cool).

Beyond that, I think what makes a set truly great is a combination of displayability and playability rolled into one.  The best example that I can think of (and a set that I believe might be one of the greatest of all time) is the Silver Mine Shootout from the Lone Ranger line.  Strange pick, yes, I know, but it truly knocks it out of the park for me.  The set is both a very visually appealing representation of an abandoned mine, with no real "dud" angles, while also being absolutely loaded with play features that are still fun to use time and time again.  To me, that set is a great example of the 90s Western or Adventurers ideology of sets that would contain a bunch of neat play features/traps/etc, just put together with a more modern facelift.

I find myself less interested in a set if it's "build it once and stick it on a shelf."  Not to say I don't own any of those - I have some Brickheadz, and I've had the Creator Fish Tank sitting in my window for about 5 years now, but I want to be able to interact with stuff once I've built it.

[Karalora]

4 hours ago, danth said:

I forgot to ask about this. Why?

If all your parts are different colors, you can't really build anything in a desired color scheme. 

You should see how many total parts I have...

I don't do much MOCing (never really got the knack), and what I do build tends to be more free-form than planned. Having a wide variety of colors in the small pieces makes it easier to add quirky details to something like a flower bed.

[Mylenium]

11 hours ago, Karalora said:

You should see how many total parts I have...

So do I, but the harsh reality is that there's always the one missing you need most at a given moment. ;-) That aside I would still argue that consistent colors are simply better to handle. I've never shied away from e.g. colorful Friends sets even when the theme wasn't nearly as popular as it is now, but there simply are pieces in certain colors I would never use. A rounded 1 x 2 plate may not be the best example, but LEGO have done some wedge pieces, arches and so on in some really weird colors that barely have any use outside the sets they were originally created for. And of course they have those phases where they use one color for everything. The current wave of Bright Light Blue that started with the big Vespa (10298) certainly has caused a wave of parts in this color. That's fun for a while, but eventually gets annoying because it comes at the cost of other colors and then there is sort of an over-saturation. It's a bit paradoxical - you have tons of those blue pieces at hand, but may actually need a specific element in a color LEGO haven't produced in years or never at all.

Mylenium