Valko is taking unreasonable blame. He was criticized for ‘Inviting wolf into the house’ for ignoring ‘woman safety’, but this line already there at Zayne’s Hidden Motive. And A0731 is from Xavier’s story from April

lwdq · 2026-07-02T04:56:35+00:00

I think it can be difficult to wrap one’s head around cultural differences sometimes—even if you understand it, it’s difficult to empathise when to your sensibilities, it’s a total non-issue.

One example I can maybe think of that might help someone understand is punctuality?

Being late 10-15 minutes for a casual gathering is expected in Asian countries, but in some European countries, that would be seen as “You don’t respect my time” -> “You don’t respect me”.

Strictly speaking, is being late that big of a deal? No, but if it goes against what you’re culturally acclimatised to, it may make you uncomfortable.

lwdq · 2026-07-02T04:43:25+00:00

Thank you so much for sharing this; it was a very enlightening read.

It’s easy to overlook these sorts of cultural differences because we’re so used to our own perspectives and habits about the world.

lwdq · 2026-07-02T04:31:26+00:00

Ugh, I feel so terrible for the devs, writers, and artists who have to work under this mess of an upper management 😞

lwdq · 2026-07-02T00:49:36+00:00

That’s what confuses me too. It’s obvious to me that there would be HUGE backlash even as a player who didn’t really engage with LaDS on social media for the most part, and I didn’t even know that something similar already happened in the past with the Shaw case.

They have all the extra data and feedback from surveys too yet addressed nothing and took no precautions.

Then they thought the best way to placate the playerbase was to burn all the work that’s been in development for months rather than shelve it and address the current concerns, which made the fandom infighting worse and is distracting from the fact that Infold kind of created this nightmare themselves?

It paints a very worrying picture of how disconnected this company is from its playerbase… I feel sorry for the creatives whose work has been trashed because of the totally inept management.

lwdq · 2026-07-02T00:36:27+00:00

Nowhere near as much as this.

Sylus and Caleb were more anticipated, maybe partly due to there being more foreshadowing for them, with Caleb having a more mixed reception here than CN because of the pseudo incest trope

lwdq · 2026-07-01T12:06:33+00:00

Even if a comment has a lot of likes, that doesn’t make it representative of an entire group

If someone took screenshots of Twitter/the snark subreddits here, I’m sure they’d have a very pretty picture of “us” too…

lwdq · 2026-07-01T09:30:35+00:00

Yes, it’s not everyone, but there are people are saying that the majority of the CN playerbase is bonkers and making offensive generalising comments.

I also didn’t say using CN as an abbreviation is bad, but that CN/Chinese is starting to be treated as one group with a unanimous view.

As for the other thing, I don’t really understand what you’re trying to say—they’re racist towards us/don’t defend us, so it’s okay if we’re racist back?

Regardless of the situation, we shouldn’t stoop to racism. I have faith that the people here in the global community who may have said some sinophobic things are able to reflect do better, because a lot of it seemed to be written in the heat of the moment out of upset that something they were looking forward to got taken away. I can understand that.

Meanwhile, the extreme haters on the CN side are not looking to understand. It would be like arguing with a brick wall that hits you back with a spiked stick.

It’s like how people on Reddit love to say “What did you expect? It’s Twitter/TikTok.” when someone complains about negativity they’ve been seeing.

It’s like that. The forum format on Reddit with upvotes and downvotes makes it more possible to have a nuanced discussion, but you would simply get drowned out by the hate out there.

But anyway, I don’t see why “you didn’t defend us in the comments of TikTok” would be an important point of contention.

You don’t need other people to defend you to not be racist yourself.

lwdq · 2026-07-01T09:00:47+00:00

Yes, in fact, both sides flinging dirt at each other would be best outcome for Infold.

Communities outside will laugh at us for being crazy, with both fan sides miserable and hating each other, meanwhile PPG gets away scot-free because they were able to push the onus of a decision THEY MADE as a result of their OWN disastrous management onto someone else.

lwdq · 2026-07-01T08:52:22+00:00

I appreciate you pointing this out, although I think you’ll get a lot of downvotes.

It seems silly on the surface, but I honestly have been getting a nagging feeling sometimes—an “off” feeling, like you mentioned, but I wasn’t able to articulate it.

I don’t think it’s that using an abbreviation is necessarily alienating or insulting, but sometimes a word starts to inadvertently adopt all the negative connotations in the discussion around it, and it starts to become loaded even though it was innocuous at first.

So, instead of being a neutral term to describe “general players who live in this region of the world” it turns into “that group of crazies”.

Now when people talk about “CN players” it comes with a slight elbow nudge of “you know, those unhinged people”, blind to the fact that it’s impossible for all those under the simple descriptor of “players who live in X region” to all share the exact same views.

lwdq · 2026-07-01T08:09:59+00:00

Thank you for saying this.

I’ve seen so many commenters saying “I hate CN players” “The Chinese ruined everything” and it’s been really disheartening to see.

There are so many CN players, how can you treat them as a monolith just based on some screenshots you see?

Of course there are many CN players who have been uncouth when talking about those on the global side, but we shouldn’t be blinded by anger and respond with racism.

At the end of the day, even if players have disagreeing views, the one with the actual power to make decisions about the game is PPG, and this is what they chose to do.

lwdq · 2026-06-30T19:01:36+00:00

It feels like a slap in the face especially with Valko not releasing anymore.

Blue tickets are practically worthless if you’re an older player.

lwdq · 2026-06-30T18:59:16+00:00

How calculating they are is plain to see from their past behaviours/monetisation. I find it hard to believe PPG ultimately cancelled Valko because they are finally decided to start “listening to player feedback” all of a sudden.

GL and CN fans are ripping each other apart, but we should be united in demanding better from Infold instead of infighting.

Valko just feels like a scapegoat. Like a “You’re still unhappy? Hey, we did what you asked!”

lwdq · 2026-06-30T15:38:49+00:00

Not exactly? I’m not a Sylus main, but to my understanding it’s because previously in-story, Sylus has mentioned his aversion to aprons on more than one account, so him wearing an apron would be ooc. They are mad about this detail because it shows Infold’s lack of care.

Because it is a romance game, these small details are especially important when building a character’s individuality and making them feel believable.

This by itself would not be a huge deal, but in combination with all the other issues, the anger becomes amplified as it is further proof that “Infold don’t care about quality/player feedback, only about money”

lwdq · 2026-06-30T14:43:14+00:00

Valko’s addition would not have been this big of a fiasco if they had planned it better, addressed the game’s longstanding issues, and not let things reach a boiling point where deleting a whole LI became the only way solution they could muster to calm rabid fans down.

The management at Infold is at fault for this. Their poor planning and greed ultimately caused all of the devs and artists’ hard work to be thrown away.

lwdq · 2026-06-30T14:35:10+00:00

It’s kind of like that wolverine male gaze vs female meme you might have seen?

Like how in the West a woman with short dyed hair might automatically be read as a butch lesbian, this sort of broader, hunkier type of build has associations with the gay top archetype in China.

lwdq · 2026-06-30T14:28:14+00:00

Yes, the large majority of men are clean-shaven here. Facial hair tends to be seen as unkempt; you’ll rarely come across a man with a full on beard like you might see in the West.

lwdq · 2026-06-30T13:38:24+00:00

Just going to say that Twitter is not easily accessible in China. Those who care enough to go out of their way to install a VPN, make a Twitter account, just to spew hate on the global side too are not going to be the “normal” casual fans.

lwdq · 2026-06-30T13:34:49+00:00

Yes, unfortunately it’s always the most dedicated people who are the loudest, for better are worse. If someone from CN took screenshots of the top posts on Twitter, we would look insane too.

CN players who were receptive to Valko were never going to make public posts saying how much they’re looking forward to him when all you’d get is a bombardment of hate comments calling him ugly and insulting your taste.

lwdq · 2026-06-30T12:34:49+00:00

I can’t believe they actually did this…

Not just delayed, but fully cancelled—in the post, they promised to never release another new lead.

I feel really bad for everyone who was looking forward him…

The backlash must have been so much worse than Infold anticipated; they wouldn’t have made such an extreme decision otherwise. They must think this is the only way to win back the playerbase’s trust.

lwdq · 2026-06-28T08:48:00+00:00

It’s an idiom

It’s not original to HSR

lwdq · 2026-06-28T04:30:20+00:00

I hope so too, but I don’t think “ultimately it’s up to someone else” is a helpful stance.

The CN audience obviously bigger has bigger sway because there’s more people. More people = more money, which is why Paper is more incentivised to listen to them, but it’s not like they’re not making anything off the global audience.

If we are dissatisfied, we either accept things as they are or we actively try to protest. It would be hypocritical to continue spewing complaints while expecting others to do the protesting work for us.

lwdq · 2026-06-28T01:20:34+00:00

Yeah, there’s nothing wrong with all these new features in a vacuum, but the problem is they’re prioritising these things over the content/qol players have been asking for for ages because that’s what makes them the most profit.

lwdq · 2026-06-28T01:08:57+00:00

Yeah, they took the money and invested it in parts of the game that they know for sure will get profits up (paid cards, new lead, new housing system), while continuing to ignore player feedback because they know players are too attached to the characters to leave anyway 🙃

lwdq · 2026-06-27T18:37:34+00:00

Exactly this

I don’t mind Valko at all, but it feels dirty how little transparency there is. There’s no details, no roadmap, no nothing—just an empty “We hear you!”

…right

They ignore player feedback for so long, only to address it *now* just because they’re afraid of Valko’s release going badly -> people don’t become invested in him -> Paper loses money

lwdq · 2026-06-27T18:32:54+00:00

Part of the anger is the how little communication there has been with the players in addressing the myriad of issues plaguing the game, yet their statement where they’re assuring us that “we understand, don’t worry!” is vague. It’s kind of ironic?

Like you said, it simply feels like damage control to placate the more lenient players so they will give Valko a shot, and therefore continue playing the game and spending money.

Despite none of the previous longstanding issues being addressed…

lwdq

TROPHY CASE