The best Lego Technic sets of all time, ranked according to their average ratings

[recovering_from_dark_ages]

On 1/28/2025 at 8:22 AM, mobi said:

These rankings don't really mean much.

What surprised me is the domination of older Technic sets in the ranking (the 2nd list).

If you look at Lego's revenue (https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-legos-revenue-growth-2003-2023/) then it is somewhat counter intuitive that older sets are still more popular.

May be ratings were made by particular generation of people (like us?) who were very active with Lego Technic in older years and now moved on with life with something else and new generation did not find similar craze in Technic sets.

I feel best days of Technic are beyond us. Modern Technic sets are too complex and expensive. Building them feels more of a chore than fun (of course, my personal opinion). I am now more interested City theme or modular buildings, which are more liked by my children too. I think smaller Technic sets are still loved by kids but Lego is focusing too much on adult collectors on their latest flagship Technic sets. The Porsche was great after a long time. Then the Land Rover had too many functions which didn't work well. Then from G500 it removed most of the gearbox! All the supercars are now super complicated and not much playability. 

BTW, I don't own 8455 but do own 8069, same functionality without pneumatics.
 

Just catching up here after a few months away from Eurobricks. It seems to be correct that newer Technic sets (especially the ultimate supercars) far outsell the older ones, but then again, probably most people buying the new Technic sets have never heard of the old ones and may never discover them.

I agree that the ratings on brickset seem drastically skewed in favor of older sets in general, probably because people are biased in favor of their childhood sets. There is no other fathomable reason why comparatively ugly and oversimplified sets like 8443 and 8862 are among the top 20 highest rated Technic sets on brickset, ahead of much better modern Technic sets like 42110 and 42100. Btw, 8455 has a drivetrain and engine, which 8069 seems to lack. The pneumatics are the most interesting part to most builders.

Personally, I'm in favor of the greater complexity. It makes the sets far more interesting and I would have loved it even as a kid. The gearboxes on 8880 and 8448 are trivial in comparison to those of the modern supercar sets like 42172, which can be rebuilt into a McLaren F1 GTR. And while it's a behemoth, 42100 is the first ever Technic set to combine remote control with programmability, and the first to be programmable in Python. 42100's alt build MOCs are unparalleled by those of any pre-2015 set and even most of the newer ones. It's probably a great way to motivate a kid to learn programming....

Edited May 24 by recovering_from_dark_ages

[recovering_from_dark_ages]

 

On 5/19/2025 at 12:20 AM, Paul B Technic said:

I have just done some more stats and breakdowns on this data:

1. If you take all the "positive scores" 4 and 5's, the top 10 in order are:
42172
8443 - Interesting it scored so high.
8485 - 
8455
8480
42054
42030
8880
852
42159

 

2. If you take all the "negative scores" 0,1,2's, the bottom 10 in order are:
8660
42145 - Not sure why this is rated so low.
851
42164
42113
8043 - This also surprises me.
42069
42131
42159 - This was also in the top 10, seems like you either love it or hate it.
8459
 

 

If I understand correctly, your first list shows the sets that have the highest count ratio of 5 star ratings to 4 star ratings, while the second list shows the sets that have the lowest average rating only among their 0-2 star ratings. Are you sure that you excluded the ratings correctly and ordered the results correctly? If you only count each set's 4 and 5 star ratings, 8443 and 42159 would both have average ratings of 4.625 stars, while 8480 would have an average rating of 4.81 stars.

Regardless if the lists were correctly compiled, what's the idea behind doing this? For one thing, you exclude 3-star ratings, which quantify the level of "meh" reactions to the set. But more importantly, you lose the overall average rating of the set by reviewers, or the average notion of how good it is. And besides, if a set got 500 5-star ratings and one 0-star rating, and nothing in between, then it would rank at the top of both of your lists (with an average rating of 5 on the first list and an average rating of 0 on the second list). Thus your lists would consider it to be simultaneously the best of the best and the worst of the worst, even though its overall average rating of 4.99 stars would make it an exceptionally well-rated set that could not reasonably be described as being among the worst.

Edited May 24 by recovering_from_dark_ages