Tldr: A barebones MM that makes it obvious it was created and balanced for combat ships without taking non combat in to account and a return to an already abandoned PRE / SCM / CRU format. Badly executed UI changes with ill fated refocus back to “form over function”. CIGs inability to RNG spawn bounty targets anywhere in Stanton but relying on existing location (caves, wreck, outposts) to spawn them, thus they spawn while you are cave / wreck diving in combination with AI updates to pit-bull terrier form. As well as an ironclad initiative by the Mission Feature Team to add combat encounters to near EVERY aspect of the game ... has made SC not fun for me. Greetings, I have been actively playing Alpha 3.23 since its release on a near daily basis and gone through all my preferred gameplay loops. These include: Bounty Hunting, FPS Mercenary, Investigation and Trading. Overall my game experience has worsened considerably compared to up to Alpha 3.22.1. With this review I want to try to put in to words why for me Alpha 3.23 took out the fun of me playing Star Citizen. * The new Starmap: As we know Alpha 3.23 brought us the long awaited starmap rework and oh boy is this a mixed bag of emotions. While the new “Map-App” as CIG calls it, as it combines ground, ship interior and star map, is visually more pleasing then its previous incarnation and now comes with search bar functionality, it feels like a step back or straight out regression from earlier versions when it comes to its core of being the games accessible Starmap to go to places. Reason being: the aesthetic changes in icons for known Points of Interest. Up to 3.22.1 PoI icons where simple and functional and one could easily identify a planet from a Moon, an OM marker from a Lagrange Point, a main city hub from any other ground PoI. Not anymore. Moons and Planets use the same icon. City markers while different in form due to its size fully blend in to any other ground PoI marker. The OM markers, LEO station, Lagrange/ Jump Point station now all use too similar icons. Why isn’t there more diversity of marker shapes to make it easier to find what one is looking for? PoIs that need their own - distinct - marker: OM points, main City hub, Moons, Planets, Distribution Centers, LEO stations, Villages, Jump Point Station, Lagrange Station. Different colors would be nice. Remaining new map features of helmet UI with or without helmet, mini map are cool new addition. No complaints, but I do wonder why can you show +/- 1° changes in Z direction, but this is not the case at the compass? Edit: Forgot to mention - please add back labes of Lagrange Points, any other white dot marked PoI when zoomed to system view! Also. Plotting crouse fails as often as it did in the starmaps former version. Fix this already! * Interaction Mode: What used to be a unified way to interact with things has turned in to a mambo jumbo of “F” icons and the old “hold F, select with mouse + left click” and "hold F + right click for more" system without there being any logic to its use. Will say there is no clear pattern. The elevator is a perfect example for this: there is the “F” to “call elevator”, but once inside you need to hold F, use scroll wheel to select and left click to confirm. On any display that has multiple options you need to hold F, right click to pop up the “interaction wheel” in order to even see all interaction options. An idea how to clean this up: Control panels that have a UI e.g. “OPEN”, “Cycle”, “Hangar 1, Hangar 2”, “Habitation” etc retain the hold F and use mouse to select interaction like we have always had. This of course means CIG needs to finally add UI to e.g. the 890 jump main hangar control panel to say “open/close hangar doors” and “raise/lower landing platform” or Carracks ramp control to say “Open/Close Ramp”. Switches, Knobs, Dials, and objects like a bottle, armor piece, weapon etc. get the “F” treatment and retain the “Hold F + right click” for more interaction options such as “place”, “throw”, store” etc. *Master Modes: I trust Yogi he can dial this in but I still say – MM is not needed and a 100% regression to the 2015 Alpha 2.x PRE / SCM / CRU system that was agreed on by backers and CIG to be BAD!!!!!! Limiting the players ability to have full speed control over their ships by gating speeds behind speed modes, always felt artificially imposed, clunky to use and limiting in how to use your ship effectively. Why CIG decided to bring this back is beyond me. There are alternative ways with current available game mechanics to achieve the same “combat at SCM” goal without re implementing these speed modes. E.g. use of the power triangle with a tradeoff: full weapons = lower speed to SCM. Want to go fast = take power from weapons. Teach players to use the speed limiter to stay at SCM for combat. Yes, shields stay ON regardless of speed, the trade off is, above SCM they don’t recharge when hit. A ship not having its passive protection of shields at all times just because its going faster than SCM is silly and should be dropped asap. AI changes and mission gameplay: This is where 3.23 for me completely fell apart. CIG ported over some of S42 AI for ship and on foot AI encounters – but completely forgot to take MM changes in to account when players run in to multiple AI ships and CIGs full reliance to spawn their ship bounties at implemented Points of interest, including cave and wreck locations as well as any outpost there is, rears its very ugly head! On multiple occasions when doing missing person / crew, retrieve blackbox, delivery mission as well as general trading did the following happen on repeat: At near every location you go, you will be met with three to four AI pirate ships! They might not be there at first, but will spawn in the longer you linger. Always! Those AI groups usually consist of 2x Valkyrie, 1x Cutlass Black, sometimes a Valkyrie is replaced by a Bucaneer. Occasionally they are complimented by a Reclaimer. At outpost you often find a lone Reclaimer hovering nearby. At any event – due the S42 AI changes these ships behave like a pit-bull terrier now – meaning they have a never ending agro timer and range and if you stay at SCM they’ll follow you around the entire planet never giving up! AI ships will always "nose" you (keep their weapons at you) nearly 100% of the time. When on a missing person mission at wrecks/caves often the AI ships will spawn while you are inside the wreck / cave and because of their pit-bull aggression blow your ship before you can get to it!! It is UNACCEPTABLE how CIG have implemented MM and S42 AI behavior, but have NOT rebalanced AI encounters and are STILL unable to have bounty targets spawn outside of implemented PoI. CIG has the WHOLE of Stanton (and soon Pyro) to spawn bounty targets, but build a system that spawns them at the exact outposts you are at, to do some trading while inside a building to buy commodities! The constant appearance of enemy ships at ANY implemented PoI has RUINED the game for me! I can NOT do any missing person at a Freelancer wreck without possibly spawning 1x Reclaimer, 2 Valkyrie and 1 Cutlass Black when I get there. How the fuck does CIG think a new player in their Cutter / Aurora is supposed to fight these ships? Are we supposed to ALWAYS bring combat ships only + backup now? An escort for a 3k aUEC delivery mission? Everything in Star Citizen is overrun by “combat“ to the point that SC - is NOT FUN to me anymore! CIG needs to sit down and rethink what they are doing! The UI made a turn to the worse by going back to fancy looking animated “Iron Man” UI. The Mission Feature Team managed to infiltrate all aspects of the PU with “combat” to the point that you cannot even do a simple trade run without potentially running in to a swarm of pit-bull terriers that attack on sight and won’t ever let go of you. To top it off, I can NOT believe that in year TWELVE CIG threw out the established flight model that had promise but needed tweaks, to return to a previously abandoned PRE / SCM / CRU mode system. And just to repeat this point - when I do trading I do NOT want to do combat! But CIG keeps spawning enemy ships at EVERY outpost forcing my In to combat – STOP IT CIG! I am the one who picks my play activities! Not you! Disclaimer: This is NOT me saying “goodbye” to SC, but the fun I had playing up till 3.22.1 is gone for now! It saddens me as I was looking forward to UI changes, S42 AI updates etc. But at least for me, 3.23 ruined my game experience as I am near unable to avoid combat since CIG added it everywhere! Regards HkS73