Age of Conan - Patch 3.0...awesome at a price

Discussion is raging on Patch 3.0 in the forums.

Basically this patch took the combat system in AoC and made major changes. As well, new crafting recipes for armor was introduced, along with better alchemy potions.
Finally the PvP update, part two, was introduced. The consequence punishes those players who grief lower levels for fun.

But, even though these changes were huge, and well done, it seems the player base is still in an uproar.
But what would we expect?

Some issues though are reasonable, and prove that Funcom is still working through some kinks. But, have they lost their chance to recover?

Lets take the PvP system.

Basically a player who is 10 or more levels higher than another player cannot attack said player. Also, if a player is attacked multiple times by one player (example, if the system sees you attack one person 5 times in a row), you gain what is called "murder points".

Accumulate enough points and you become a criminal.

Seems that the PvP-RP server thinks this is the best thing since sliced bread. FFA servers do not..
Why?
They are gaming the system. By forming groups with level 20 players in their pack, and then when any AoE spell or off damage hits, it becomes an instant group point against the attacker, making them a griefer...i.e: here's your murder point.

Also, the system is in place to check for a player attacking first, but someone else described this scenario.
A level 61 attacked an 80. The 80 fought back, and as such, this does not count against the player. But, the 61 ran away. So, the 80 moved on. The 61 attacked again. The 80 reciprocated. The 61 ran away again. But appeared on the other side of the field. The 80 saw him, and attacked...
Oops.
"Heres your murder point"

Who would have thought a player would find a way to work AGAINST the system?

Well, Funcom also enhanced the recipes for Armor and Alchemy.
The loot tables though are still broken, and the drops are not coming for the Alchemy recipes.
The armor tables?
Oh, we decided to add 12 of the 24 new recipes right now.
Other 12 will be in the next huge patch which should arrive in another month or so.

Combat which has been modified had a majority of 4 step and 5 step combo's removed.
The reasons were straight forward.
The chances to land a strike after a long combo for PvP, was minimal, as the defender could move out of the way too quickly, or the player could preload so they killed in one shot. (Pre load was the ability to start the combo away from their target, and on the last hit of the combo move toward the target and hit for massive amounts of damage, as the last 3-4 strikes were all in the one strike.)

The new combos are a charm for PvP.

But, the PvE servers are in major complaint mode. Expected. Changes for PvP sake always riles up the PvE. And for good reason this time.
This was suppose to be a PvE patch this round, but it seems the new content is being held back for Patch 4. As well, the crafting is still broken, so no change there.
Combat just made some classes weaker, and some more powerful as is standard, to hopefully balance this out.
But, now PvE has become a simple affair. With regular mobs dying quickly and big boss mobs not going down hard at all.

And even simple things. Like Line of Sight occlusion is now turned off for bosses.
You as a player cannot hide behind objects to avoid boss attacks...they can hit your through walls and doors...
Cool.
Seems players exploited that before, so they HAD to turn it off.

Bosses uber powerful indeed.

Developers are damned if they, damned if they don't.
Time will only tell if Funcom made the right moves.

But, time is NOT on Funcoms side, thanks to waiting too long to get these changes out of the gate, and this may do more to rile the masses than satisfy the few.