Analyzing the CMF Series

[1980-Something-Space-Guy]

I think it would be interesting to see how the CMFs compare to minifigs of other themes from around the same time. The Spartan, for example, is cool and sought after, but is it really better liked than another minifigure from a popular line (let's say Batman from set 6858 for argument's sake)? There is less discussion about which minifig is the best in "regular" themes than in CMFs because you are guaranteed the same figures in any set you buy, whereas CMFs are blind packaged. I don't think it means these minifigs are liked less, but just have their availability discussed less. Brickset numbers also can't be reliably used because people buy sets for many reasons (overall set, build, parts, one minifig, minifigs overall, etc.), but people buy CMFs only for the minifig inside.

(Also, when I'm listing things to go to sleep, it usually starts as Bulbasaur, Ivysaur, Venosaur,...)

A rating considering rarity could also be very interesting. Cloud City Boba and Chrome 3PO would probably be somewhere near the top!

[Angeli]

...I dreamed just half an hour ago about building some kind of detailed castle on 48x48... I think this is the first time :) I was planning slope cliffs, and the stream (in my dream, I run out of blue trans bricks, and had to use yellow in one part of the stream:)

There, I just wanted to share this with you :)

...it is kind of related to the topic, if you read the first post :)

[Rogue Angel]

So I have devised a way to rank each series to determine which one I like the best, and I thought that others maybe interested in trying it as well (despite the amount of time it takes to calculate it). I have always thought that series 3 was the best, and when I first saw pictures of series 8, I thought it was a somewhat disappointing series, but the more I thought about it, the less certain I was. So here goes...

I figured that each figure that I would purchase should have a value of 1-5, 5 being the best. A very few figures that I did not purchase, I still gave a value of 1, since I thought they were pretty cool (statue of liberty and circus clown for me.) Any figure I would not purchase would be given a value of 0. I then added up the values of the figures I purchased to give me an overall value for the set.

The next paragraph cover how I weighted my values, so please feel free to ignore this part if you want.

In my opinion, the quality of a series is determined mostly by the top few figures, and so I tried to be sparing with my high rankings, with an average of one 5 point per series (8 total) and one 4 point per series (8 total) I ended up with about 12 figures with 3 point values, and about a 1/3 of my remaining figures were 2 pointers, and the rest 1 pointers. There were a total of 51 figures out of the 8 series that I gave a 0 point value (6 figures per series on average, or a third of all CMFs produced thus far). There were a coupld\e of instances where new parts were introduced, and so I gave value to the figure, even though I did not purchase it (1 point for the new flower introduced with the bride/hippie, and 4 points for the wolf-man, since it provides a brown elven hairpiece - of which I picked up 30 of through Bricklink) I tossed around the idea of ranking the elf at 10 points, because it is hands-down my favorite figure, and I would give up every other CMF to have the elf, but this is my own private anomaly, and I would not encourage doing this for more than 1 fig if at all, because it will throw off your series ranking.

I am really big on Castle/Historical and that has played the biggest factor in my choices.

My 5-point figures are as follows: Elf, Spartan, Zombie, Evil Dwarf, Minotaur, Space Marine and Musketeer.

My 4-point figures are as follows: Hazmat Guy, Roman Legionnaire, Aztec Warrior, Old-school Diver, Thespian, Man-Bat, Wolf Man (for the elven hairpiece) and the Evil Knight (Shield, armor, and a copy of the new sword)

Most of my 0-value figs were townspeople or re-issues (Native Americans, Explorer, Diver, Ninja, etc)

So my ranking were:

Tied for 1st place with 24 points: Series 7, Series 6 and Series 4

In 4th place with 23 points: Series 8

In 5th place with 21 points: Series 5

In 6th place with 20 points: Series 1

In 7th place with 18 points: Series 2

In last place with 15 points: Series 3

so apparently I have liked the series more as they have advanced, which would make sense as LEGO is taking more chances as they progress. I was really surprised that series 3 was at the bottom of my list, since I have always thought of it as my favorite with the Elf fig.

I would be interested in hearing other people's results but beware, this will take a while to figure out. I hope others enjoy this as well.

[MikeyB]

Interesting results. The elf is by far my favorite figure as well but will have spend a few minutes going through the whole processes to see what I come up with.

mikey

Interesting results. The elf is by far my favorite figure as well but will have spend a few minutes going through the whole processes to see what I come up with.

mikey

[Lightning Dragon]

This is kind of a new idea and topic. I guess it's OK if you want to use this special method, but I don't think it's needed. I mean, I don't think we need a method to find out our favorite series, the one with the most minifigures in it that we like is technically the best series in our opinion. I don't think we need points to tell us that. Just my opinion; this way is interesting though.

Edited July 18, 2012 by Lightning Dragon

[Yooha]

I made my own ranking, which has some difference from this one:

I gave points 1 to 10 to each figure, even those I don't have. Obviously, the minifigs I don't own have less points. Because I'm so soft-hearted no figure ended up with points less then 4

I started this measuring system from the beginning, so it wasn't a one-big-time job to do. Sometimes I think that a few minifigs are not so interesting, looking back the points I gave 1-2 year(s) ago, but I decided not to change the points I gave then, because they reflect my first impression of that particular minifig. I had an overall feeling about each series when I first saw it, and I tried to remember, what I felt then, and comparing that “feeling”. Luckily, the objective comparison showed the same pictures as my overall feelings about a series.

And now, the numbers:

Series 4 6.81

Series 7 6.75

Series 6 6.44

Series 1 6.38

Series 8 6.25

Series 3 6.19

Series 5 6.13

Series 2 5.88

Even though the numbers cover only a narrow spectrum, my feelings about the series are not so close. I think there are only one or two great/lame minifigs in each series, that decide the rank, most minifigs ended up with points 5-6. (approx. 50%)

I have a huge file with graphs and statistics, but I won’t bother anyone with it. Only some notes:

There are only 4 minifigs with 10 points (elf, mad scientist, hazmat guy, aztec warrior)

Only one figure with 4 points in series 4 and 8 (soccer player and DJ). The latter ended up 5th place because no 10 point and only one 9 point-figure (the diver).

6 figures with 8 point or more in series 7 (the most), only 2 figures in series 2.

I know this is not necessary, but I love seeing numbers is any system

With Athos's methodology:

1st Place (tie) = Series 4 and 7 (13 points)

3rd Place = Series 6 (11 points)

4th Place = Series 1 (10 points)

5th Place (tie) = Series 3 and 8 (7 points)

7th Place (tie) = Series 2 and 5 (6 points)

Edited July 18, 2012 by Yooha

[Gabe]

It is quite fascinating to read about how other ppl have ranked the series so far, as it's something that i have had a bit of trouble deciding for myself! I liked rogueang's method a lot, so i sat down and did some ranking for myself, with some modifications to his method:

~Every fig was scored 1 to 5, no zeros.

~I didn't limit myself to one score of 5 or 1 per series, but just went on my overall gut feeling for each fig.

~In addition to this raw score, i also calculated the the awesome/dross ratio (scores of 4 and 5 over scores of 1 and 2)

~I also created an extra statistic to represent the "M" factor, or how many multiples i bought of those figs that scored either a 4 or a 5.

So, how did each series stack up for me?

Series 1: score of 48, awesome/dross (hereafter known as a/d)= 1.333, M factor 2 (artificially low as i scored no zombies or nurses, just having come out of my dark ages at the time! Probably should have been about 12)

Series 2: score of 42, a/d = 0.375, M factor 5 (Also low - should have got more Spartans! Should be about 10)

Series 3: score of 46, a/d = 0.75, M factor 26 (Mainly due to the elf! )

Series 4: score of 48, a/d = 1.667, M factor 16

Series 5: score of 48, a/d = 1.333, M factor 11

Series 6: score of 50, a/d = 1.5, M factor 24

Series 7: score of 53, a/d = 2.0, M factor 19

Series 8: score of 51, a/d = 1.667, M factor ?? (anticipate about 15-16)

If you had asked me to list the series from best to worst before doing the ranking, i probably would have scored series 3 and 4 higher and 1 and 8 lower than the stats suggest, however i still would have ranked 7 first and 2 last. The score of series 8 really surprised me, as on first inspection i wasn't that impressed. But perhaps it has suffered the curse of trying to follow the amazing series 6, which was a multiples bonanza, and 7, which was just an outstanding series. This effect of the previous series on my subjective evaluation might also explain my high opinion of series 3, coming as it did after the series 2 shocker. (that, and the elf didn't hurt either... )

Well. This has been an enjoyable way to spend a Monday evening.

Edited July 16, 2012 by gabe

[Itaria No Shintaku]

This topic is nearly the same as This One

Adding Series 8, the worse actually, here are my classment

1st Place = Series 6 (15 points)

2nd Place = Series 4 (12 points)

3rd Place (2 way tie) = Series 2 & 7 (9 points)

5th Place = Series 5 (8 points)

6th Place (2 way tie) = Series 1 & 3 (7 points)

8th Place = Series 8 (6 ponts)

[Rogue Angel]

This topic is nearly the same as This One

Adding Series 8, the worse actually, here are my classment

1st Place = Series 6 (15 points)

2nd Place = Series 4 (12 points)

3rd Place (2 way tie) = Series 2 & 7 (9 points)

5th Place = Series 5 (8 points)

6th Place (2 way tie) = Series 1 & 3 (7 points)

8th Place = Series 8 (6 ponts)

You're right, I missed that one! Mods, feel free to merge mine over if you feel appropriate.

Yooha, Gabe and Itaria - thanks for giving your scores - it's always interesting to see other people's methods/results.

MikeyB - I'm interested to hear your results.

Lightning - You are correct, this calculation method is totally not necessary. It is only for those of us that like to over-analyze things.

As for your alternative methods, a couple of observations.

- The amount of impact a single fig can have is based off of the maximum value, so for Yooha, the best figure (10 pts) is 2.5 times better than the worst figure (4 pts), with my system the best figure is five times better (0 value not considered) because my rating of a series is based more off of a few good figures out of each set (this also applies to giving out more 5's and 4's)

- If you give every figure a minimum value of 1 (or 4 for Yooha) then this also lessens the impact of individual figs.

- If you can give figures negative values (Athos system), then really bad figures can offset really good figures. I feel this is relevant if you collect the entire series as many people seem to. This is a very good way to rate the series as an entire product since I do feel that some of the reprints/repeats really detract from the CMF line. I just treat the figures I don't care about as non-existent since I only buy the ones I like.

- I really like the multiple factor, as well as the a/d ratio. I'm not sure how I would apply the a/d ratio to my values, but I will definitely be determining my m-factors

Thanks for your input and rankings!

[WhiteFang]

You're right, I missed that one! Mods, feel free to merge mine over if you feel appropriate.

.....

I have merged your topic into this existing discussion.

Thank you for sharing your methodology. I will love to give it a try when I have much free time on my hand.

[Rogue Angel]

So my M factors are:

Series 1: 1 (probably at least 6 if I'd ever found S1 packs ANYWHERE!)

Series 2: 1 (10 if I could find packs)

Series 3: 30 (Elves)

Series 4: 5 (Musketeer and Hazmat, do 30 Wolfman hairpieces count for anything? )

Series 5: 23 (Evil Dwarf and a few Gladiators)

Series 6: 17 (Minotaurs; Legionnaires and Highlanders)

Series 7: 22 (11 Space Marines, 7 Evil Knights, 4 Aztecs and an extra Valkyrie)

Series 8: 18 Anticipated (7 Vampires, 5 Thespians, 3 Divers, 3 Conquistadors - This will depend greatly on my luck finding them in stores though.