Decepticon/Autobot Ratio

[Darksaber]

has anyone else noticed the complete 180 in the shows g1 to now of Autobot - Decepticon ratio

G1 Autobots easily outnumbered Decepticons fast forward to now and the Decepticons easily out number the bots in the middle though they were reasonably even

anyone else spot this?

[Bidoofdude]

With the G1 cartoon, it was really an even battle. Lots of moderately good Autobots and a few really good Decepticons. They evened each other out.

Now, I think it's actually quite good, especially in a series like Prime, where the Autobots seem to be this dwindling in numbers force of ragtags, who desperately fight against the hordes of Decepticons just to stay alive, with the Decepticons mostly outnumbering and outgunning them nearly every time.

[DELTAprime]

Yeah, plus the Con's use Army Builders like the Vehicons in Prime and the many generic Cybertronian alt mode looking Con's in DOTM.

[griffin]

I think in recent eras/series, it is intended to have over-whelming odds of cannon fodder Decepticon Troops, not only for the drama of impossible odds, but so that more episodes can have Autobots doing a lot of "killing" to excite the kiddies who want to see destruction and victory of the good guys... not to mention catering to fans who get tired of having a small cast that survives EVERY episode no matter how much fighting or damage occurs.
(either they have to be written as being almost indestructible, implausibly resurrected several times, or become a running joke... ie, Waspinator)

[Bidoofdude]

I think in recent eras/series, it is intended to have over-whelming odds of cannon fodder Decepticon Troops, not only for the drama of impossible odds, but so that more episodes can have Autobots doing a lot of "killing" to excite the kiddies who want to see destruction and victory of the good guys... not to mention catering to fans who get tired of having a small cast that survives EVERY episode no matter how much fighting or damage occurs.
(either they have to be written as being almost indestructible, implausibly resurrected several times, or become a running joke... ie, Waspinator)

I actually kind of like it. Prime in particular had a much more serious note with this, which I personally think create quite a dark and desperate atmosphere. But yes, it can get kind of boring. I like to have a variety of characters of whom I can explore their significance and their obscurity. That's one of the things I liked about the UT, notably Cybertron. Interesting characters and the obscure. A main, reoccurng cast, with layers of background guys to pad it out.You weren't always exactly sure who was on whose side at most times, which I like very much. (Cool to get all the toys for said characters as well :D)

[GoktimusPrime]

The disbalance generally comes from the fact that during G1, they manufactured more Autobot toys than Decepticons. "Hero" toys tend to sell better than "villain" toys. That's why superhero lines will have umpteen number of variants of the hero that outnumber the villains. You look at lines like Superman, Batman, Spider-Man etc., there'll be like a dozen different versions of the hero to every villain. In the first year of Transformers, the Decepticons were nearly outnumbered 2:1 (18 (or 19 if you count Bumper separately :p) Autobots vs. 10 Decepticons). The tail end of G1 in Japan also saw the Cybertrons notably outnumbering the Destrons.

Beast Wars was really the first line that really attempted to even the odds. It was a nearly 50:50 ratio of Maximals to Predacons. This ratio allowed Takara to release all their Beast Wars toys either individually or packed together in "Versus Sets" (e.g. Rattrap Vs Terrorsaur, Cheetor Vs Waspinator etc.).

As others have said, TF Prime did see the Autobots outnumbered by Decepticons with the use of Vehicon clones. If you listen to the S3 DVD audio commentary, this was deliberately done by the writers to make the Autobots underdogs. Beast Wars felt more like a chess game (BW Megatron certainly played it like one). ;) Although G1 did see the Autobots outnumber the Decepticons in the toyline, writers often ended up tipping the scales against the Autobots with fill in generic Gumbies, such as:
+ Purple Seekers
+ Extra Reflector type and Rumble/Frenzy style cassette warriors
+ Insecticon clones
+ Sweeps
+ Sharkticons
And of course in Beast Machines we saw massive armies of Vehicons, and indeed the name "Vehicon" originated from BM.

Animated was interesting in that the Autobots vastly outnumbered the Decepticons (or at least were far better organised, while Decepticon forces were scattered), but the Decepticons seemed to individually outclass the Autobots. It was often difficult for multiple Autobots to defeat even a single Decepticon. And the Autobots' greatest weakness was also arguably their arrogance - having believed that they'd driven the Decepticons into extinction and that they had faded into myth.

One of the few times that Autobots have had Gumbies was the Junkions. Although Wreck Gar was often separated from them, whereas the Sweeps were usually always with Scourge.

[BigTransformerTrev]

There were a few years there like 1986 where the amount of toys produced were split right down the middle - 52 Autobots & 52 Decepticons.

I kind of liked that as a kid as I wanted to set up battles and I wanted even numbers on both sides. I even used to try and have the same amount of Decepticons as Autobots, but as the Decepticon toys became more and more 'Weird Animal Thingies' (Firecons, Headmaster animals etc) which I didn't like I found that balance hard to maintain. Hence why until I started collecting again as an adult I had almost 3 times as many Decepticon Micromasters as Autobot ones.

Personally, like Griffin said, I can see the appeal of having big Decepticon cannonfodder armies for the valiant outnumbered Autobots to kill (Sweeps, Sharkticons, the Energon Terrorcons, Vehicons etc) but from a collectors point of view I wish it was more even. But then like Gok said, Hero toys always sell better than villian ones. My mum used to run a little toy shop and she had to convince me of that when young, as I never understood why she stocked so many Ninja Turtles but only one or two TMNT bad guy characters :p

[DELTAprime]

My mum used to run a little toy shop and she had to convince me of that when young, as I never understood why she stocked so many Ninja Turtles but only one or two TMNT bad guy characters :p

I had all 4 normal Turtles plus a gimmick version of Don. On the other hand I had a Shedder and one Foot Clan, so 5 v 2 for me.

I do wish the Con's got more toys but they would just be shelf warmers. So many Autobot's in my collection vs so few Con's.

[MayzaPrime]

I had all 4 normal Turtles plus a gimmick version of Don. On the other hand I had a Shedder and one Foot Clan, so 5 v 2 for me.

I do wish the Con's got more toys but they would just be shelf warmers. So many Autobot's in my collection vs so few Con's.

The new TMNT which I have got for my kids actually have about a 50:50 ratio of good to bad guys (actually there might even be more bad guys :D). Plus with the giant base I bought them they haven't really played with anything else. Now all we need is more bad guy vehicles.

[GoktimusPrime]

If I were Hasbro, I'd stick in a Gumby variant in every wave instead of more Bumblebee variants. In the case of TF Prime I would've released some variant of the FE Vehicon, TFPRiD Vehicon, Jet Vehicon etc. per assortment. The TFPRiD Vehicon could've easily been redecoed as a Decepticon miner (http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Decepticon_Miner), which I would've called an "Engineer" just to make it look more marketable/appealing. Heck... you could probably get away with doing at least one Autobot variant for those who wanna Gumby up the good guys - it'd be equally great to give your main Decepticons cannon fodder to plow through too during toy play. ;)

That's something I quite liked about Energon, they not only gave us Terrorcon Gumbies for the Deceps, but also Omnicon Gumbies for the 'bots. Yeah... it was weird how they were called Omnicons despite being Autobots, and not Omnibots (which would've been a neat G1 homage). Either way, it was a great concept, and I still often use Omnicons as Autobot red shirts when my toy campaigns call for it. :D

[griffin]

If you took a poll of regular consumers to pick just one Transformers toy/character out of a set (or year) even if there were more Decepticons to choose from, most will select the main heroes, or the more well known characters (who are mostly the heroes)... even among collectors (there are more Autobot fans than Decepticon Fans*, so toy purchasing will follow the same lopsided ratio).

(*Our annual Ozformers votes, and even Hasbro's Transformers site (http://www.hasbro.com/transformers/en_US/shop/kids-product-guide.cfm) have polls to see which is the more popular faction - so Hasbro knows not to produce too many Decepticon toys if all the evidence proves that too many of them won't sell)