Apparently you can't set up a new Mobile Security App right now anyway. I removed my CE Key and went to add the mobile authenticator... and where it should be giving a "Serial Number" to plug into the phone app... it's blank. So... good job, Bioware. Good job. Of all the things to cluster-fork, you'd think login security would be OFF THE LIST.

Same here,. Level 65, Rank 10, 23k health, damage is 278=282 (i.e. useless at level). Also, this companion has no Trick, apparently.

That's it right there. It's bout balance. And right now, it seems heavily skewed towards giving you old stuff. Not what I hoped for. Probebly kept me from wanting 2 more Hypercrates this pack run.... which would actually have lead to me buying 14.5k CCs... or spending a hundred bucks. I may not be typical, but I think that there are plenty of spenders like me out there that are going to cut back on that spending if this is the new CM paradigm.

And that's great. I'm all for encouraging players to buy packs if they haven't been. But I think they could stand to adjust the balance, and punish the long-timer players less. No tot mention, if you're going to hype a new pack on the contents in that pack... then at least HALF the items you net from that pack... should be the items you hyped... not stuff from the last 3 years. If I had gotten about half the chance cubes I did, and the balance had been new pack contents, I'd have been a LOT happier. Heck, I might even have bought 2 more Hypercrates.

Out of 120 Packs (4 Hypercrates) I got something like 5 Indestructibles and 4 War Hero crystals. But ZERO Hawkeye (the only one I really wanted) and ZERO Eviscerating.

I can only go by my own anecdotal experience as someone who generally buys 3-4 hypercrates per pack release, but the Bronze drop rate overall is definitely higher than it used to be, by my estimation. Especially on the Chance Cubes. Out of 4 Hypercrates worth of Chance Cubes, i MIGHT have gotten a dozen Silver/Gold items, and that includes some dyes (which are usually AWEFUL, even if silver or gold).

I was wondering if this was related to one of the bugs that help up the going live yesterday... since the second problem they identified was an "Unfinished Alert" being available to start that could apparently be game-breaking.

Not that I could find. The Trade vendor for swapping Tier 8 to Tier 9 stuff did NOT have Slot Components on him.

No, you cant please everyone. But the problem is diminishing returns. Arguably, EVERYONE wants the new stuff. While the larger the pool of Bronze items you provide, the fewer people are interested in each item. The longer you have been collecting, the more of those Bronze items you have... so the fewer you are interested in. This nets the same problem with reducing demand, and thus, spending. Providing a better chance to get items that MORE people want would increase demand, and this spending. The problem with current pack items becoming more common a week or two after the current pack drops is nothing new. And it evens out once the Buy Rush dies off. Then those current pack items start to rise in value again. This means that people keep buying the current packs... either to open them, or to sell them on the GTN to those who don't want to spend real money. Increasing the pool of low-value items gained through opening a pack is not a net positive, even taking into account new players who want more old stuff. If my own Hypercrates are any evidence, there will be a flood of stuff that will QUICKLY become even more worthless than it has been for ages.

All well and good, my friend. And exactly what is likely to happen for many. That isn't good for the game, however, for the long-time spenders to stop spending. A good business model attracts new money while minimizing the loss of old money. And as I said, I acknowledge that the GCCs are good for new players. I didn't say they should get rid of them, but they should dial back the drop frequency vs. Current Pack items.

They were temp bound, so I assume we will see HORDES of them turning up on the GTN in another day or so.

I appreciate the helpful tips, Sangrar, but I've been selling CM stuff on the GTN a long, long, LOOOONG time... and it's not the 25K items that are the problem. We're talking about junk that's not even worth 1K. Some of this stuff I wouldn't be able to give away, literally. Certainly not in the quantities that will be flooding the GTN... unless everyone really does stop purchasing the packs. And, to be honest, that's kind of beside the point. The way things are structured in this new pack release with the GCCs... the more you have in collections, the less likely you are to get something you wanted. Even if you had NOTHING from the current pack when you picked up your Pack/Hypercrate. That's a new paradigm. Packs runs in SWTOR have -never- been that way before. Now as you filled out the current Pack collections, you were less likely to get single items you needed... but at least it was current stuff, which would have at least a modicum from demand among other people trying to Collect everything in the current pack as well. Now? Well now you are going to be drawing what seems like more than half of your Pack contents from the most recent Packs available.. from the MASSIVE pool of all released CM content. A pool that is DOMINATED by items that have little to no return, and certainly aren't what drew people to buy the current packs. And as someone who has been Collecting since Shipment 1... I got 2 Moods, 1 Mount, and 2 Fluff pets that I didn't already have in well over 120 Chance cubes. The rest of those cubes generated items like the Heroes' Banner, Imperial Banner, Gold Glow Eyes, and a host of other Bronze items. I might have gotten a total of a Dozen Silver/Gold items (out of FOUR Hypercrates' worth of GCCs), which includes some Dyes, which are notoriously poorly ranked when considering some of the AWEFUL color combos that are Gold/Silver rarity. Im actually very pleased they brought back the Jawa Scrap... and Companion Gifts are worth more now than ever... but these GCCs... they just drop WAY too often, and net WAY too few desirable items. And, again, they offer HUGELY diminishing return on investment for players that have been around at length. Especially those that have been previously spending money, buying packs, and filling their collections.

This may have been stated by others, but like many, I feel a need to sound off on the new Pack Changes. To qualify my opinion, for whatever that is worth, I bought 4 Hypercrates yesterday, so I'm not just piling on without my own anecdotal experiences. I'm willing to entertain the idea that the Grand Chance Cubes are worth keeping around for newer players. Those that haven't filled out their collections over the past several years may well enjoy being able to collect old, retired items that can't be found on the GTN any more... or that can't be found for a price they are willing to pay. But the current drop rate on GCCs in the packs is just way too high. The worst part is that these packs actually punish some of the most loyal spenders in the game. Players that have been around for years now... loyally purchasing packs to fill out their collections, are THE MOST LIKELY to wind up with a massive pile of junk they don't want and can't use. That problem is magnified the longer a player has been around, filling their collections. Add to that the utterly massive pool of Bronze, undesirable items that are in the loot table for the GCCs, and that punishment is compounded by turning an extremely large percentage of the "I already have that!" items into junk that you can't even sell on the GTN for any reasonable return in credits. I mean... I got so many items yesterday that have NEVER been worth any credits (Heroes' Banner, anyone?), and can you just imagine how worthless they will be with everyone else opening their GCCs and trying to sell that stuff off, too? As I said before, I'm willing to admit that the GCCs will have appeal to new comers to the game. And for that reason, I wouldn't be angry with Bioware for keeping them around. But when I open SIX packs in a row that each had TWO GCCs and no new items... and The Force knows how many runs of 2-3 Packs in a row with 2XGCC contents... then the drop rate is just too high. You need to dial it back, Bioware. Especially with this Shipment 8 run, where you have offered about a dozen less new items per pack release than you did in Shipment 7. As SO MANY have said... we didn't buy the new packs to get old items.... let alone old JUNK. An PLEASE stop punishing the long-time player base. We've been loyal to you for years... I myself am a Beta/CE Founder (I commonly add 'Sucker' to that descriptor)... shouldn't you repay that loyalty just a little?

Waddya know. They finally acknowledge the problem... and get it fixed in short order. So who was asleep at the keyboard over there when people started posting and calling CSRs an hour ago?

LOL. Nice!