My point was mainly that "by the time I decide I want a combiner" shouldn't be a metric Hasbro follows for planning out its releases and lines. I went through an annoying time tracking down the Stunticons. But that's not on them; I saw those individual figures (even Breakdown, even the Breakdown reissue) and even the box set, multiple times -- and stayed on the fence until it was too late to get them conveniently and without the Late Tax. As, sadly, is my wont. I shifted plans partway through AOTP and managed to still find the first two Aerialbots, but if I'd waited until later and suffered again, that's not something I can blame on the combiner being incentivized or not.
Anyway, even the timing for Combiners isn't what I'd call terrible; it seems to have hit a decent pace, helped along by Studio Series being an ongoing long runner and AOTP seeming to be an unusually long line of its own. But I suppose that's predicated on considering a year a decent timeframe, which I feel is justified; these aren't Blokees.
Superion could be completed three waves into the line because the Deluxes went out in pairs. The Constructicons knocked all six out in the same calendar year as well, pretty impressive for SIX figures across multiple price points. These two teams were the most efficiently completed ones. The Stunticons ran across (heh) two lines, but only because Legacy was shorter (Breakdown would've been in wave 4 if that line had one). The Combaticons have felt much the most "piecemeal" of the G1 combiners so far, only showing up in even-numbered waves (Vortex in wave 2, Blast Off and Brawl both in wave 4) and shunting Onslaught and Swindle closer to the end of the line. I think this may have been complicated by two Combaticons being Voyagers. The G2 Stunticons, as you say, have had the worst of it -- I wonder if the final parts were meant to round out the Toxitron Collection and got axed (forcing a search for a new outlet). These seemed to mostly be capsule fodder, probably due to the anticipated lower demand making them make more sense for that niche (the G2 and other box sets from Prime Wars didn't do too well, iirc).
I don't think the combiners need incentivizing -- they're clearly being spread out as tentpoles for the waves, and along with the Thirteen make up the main attractions of the line.
Interestingly, there does seem to be some "disincentivizing". But more than in the scattering-across-waves, I see it in the somewhat counterintuitive downplaying of the combination aspect in terms of packaging callouts. Members do all have "# of 5/6" notation, but the limbs don't visually show the combination off (even wordlessly to avoid having to allocate space for translations). I think someone theorized (or someone on the team mentioned) that this was to avoid people going "I'll never find the other 4, might as well skip this one". While that may partly speak to sprinkling the parts across waves, it can also speak to the perennial distribution woes that toylines run into (which in the past was a factor in Hasbro avoiding combiners).
We're not likely to get a line that drops entire combiner teams in one go unless combiner-ing is the whole focus of the line. And even Combiner Wars took a few mixed waved before having waves that were all Protectobots and all Combaticons (and, uh, all Autobots to go with Prime). (POTP also shuffled three combiner teams in mixes across two waves each, but that line was a mess of "let's clear the decks before the reboot" anyway.)
Box sets seem like the obvious way to go, but they've only done one (maybe two, although the Devastator one was a Hasbro China event thing iirc) so far. And typically only after the individual toys have been released piecemeal.
Anyway, even the timing for Combiners isn't what I'd call terrible; it seems to have hit a decent pace, helped along by Studio Series being an ongoing long runner and AOTP seeming to be an unusually long line of its own. But I suppose that's predicated on considering a year a decent timeframe, which I feel is justified; these aren't Blokees.
Superion could be completed three waves into the line because the Deluxes went out in pairs. The Constructicons knocked all six out in the same calendar year as well, pretty impressive for SIX figures across multiple price points. These two teams were the most efficiently completed ones. The Stunticons ran across (heh) two lines, but only because Legacy was shorter (Breakdown would've been in wave 4 if that line had one). The Combaticons have felt much the most "piecemeal" of the G1 combiners so far, only showing up in even-numbered waves (Vortex in wave 2, Blast Off and Brawl both in wave 4) and shunting Onslaught and Swindle closer to the end of the line. I think this may have been complicated by two Combaticons being Voyagers. The G2 Stunticons, as you say, have had the worst of it -- I wonder if the final parts were meant to round out the Toxitron Collection and got axed (forcing a search for a new outlet). These seemed to mostly be capsule fodder, probably due to the anticipated lower demand making them make more sense for that niche (the G2 and other box sets from Prime Wars didn't do too well, iirc).
I don't think the combiners need incentivizing -- they're clearly being spread out as tentpoles for the waves, and along with the Thirteen make up the main attractions of the line.
Interestingly, there does seem to be some "disincentivizing". But more than in the scattering-across-waves, I see it in the somewhat counterintuitive downplaying of the combination aspect in terms of packaging callouts. Members do all have "# of 5/6" notation, but the limbs don't visually show the combination off (even wordlessly to avoid having to allocate space for translations). I think someone theorized (or someone on the team mentioned) that this was to avoid people going "I'll never find the other 4, might as well skip this one". While that may partly speak to sprinkling the parts across waves, it can also speak to the perennial distribution woes that toylines run into (which in the past was a factor in Hasbro avoiding combiners).
We're not likely to get a line that drops entire combiner teams in one go unless combiner-ing is the whole focus of the line. And even Combiner Wars took a few mixed waved before having waves that were all Protectobots and all Combaticons (and, uh, all Autobots to go with Prime). (POTP also shuffled three combiner teams in mixes across two waves each, but that line was a mess of "let's clear the decks before the reboot" anyway.)
Box sets seem like the obvious way to go, but they've only done one (maybe two, although the Devastator one was a Hasbro China event thing iirc) so far. And typically only after the individual toys have been released piecemeal.
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