Sylus’ Missing Basic Content: From Standard Memories and Standard Companions to Anecdotes and Bond Story — What Sylus Stans have been Requesting for during the Past Six Months and their Heightened Efforts right before v3.0 Pt.2 Livestream
On the afternoon of January 8th (UTC +8), Love and Deepspace rose to number 1 on Black Cat Complaints’ ranking charts for businesses that received the highest increase in complaints on the platform in the past one week. Love and Deepspace topped this complaints chart for both the “Overall” and “Entertainment & Life” categories, while Papergames the parent company rose to number 12 and number 2 under the “Overall” and “Entertainment & Life” categories respectively — an outcome attained through the collective efforts of CN Sylus stans, the same group who also made Love and Deepspace top the local App Store’s Best Selling Games chart on the first day of Sylus’ limited Myth banner “Where Drakeshadows Fall” last month.
黑猫投诉, or Black Cat Complaints, is a platform launched by Chinese microblogging site Weibo and its parent company Sina for Chinese consumers to file complaints against local businesses. It is one of two current biggest avenues for those seeking to protect their consumer rights; the other being the government-run national consumer complaint hotline 12315 and its corresponding official website.
CN Online News Coverage
The sudden surge in consumer complaints filed against Love and Deepspace on Black Cat Complaints did not go unnoticed within the online spaces. As of January 9th noon (UTC +8), the following outlets have posted articles regarding this event:
- 黑猫投诉 Black Cat Complaints made three Weibo posts: first on January 7th, and second and third on January 8th.
- 消费保, the consumer complaint platform under China Electronics Chamber of Commerce, made a Weibo post on January 7th.
- 中国青年网 China Youth Network, a local news website tailored for youths, made a Weibo post on January 8th.
- 东方财经, finance news section under Eastday Media, made three Weibo posts: first on January 8th, second and third on January 9th.
- 新浪新消费, a consumer news section under SINA News, made a Weibo post on January 8th.
- 读秒财经, a Chinese finance news curator, made four Weibo posts: first and second on January 8th, third and fourth on January 9th.
- 天眼查 Tianyancha, a search engine for Chinese businesses’ data, made a Weibo post on January 8th.
- 青蜂侠Bee, the short videos platform under China Youth Network, made a Weibo post on January 8th.
- 凤凰网财经, the finance news section under iFeng, made a Weibo post on January 9th.
- 河南法制报, a newspaper in Henan province reporting on legal news, made a Weibo post on January 9th.
Group Consumer Complaint Filed on Black Cat
On January 6th at 12.45 PM, a CN Sylus stan opened a group consumer complaint on Black Cat. By January 9th at 10 PM, this group complaint (ticket number G17378983415 has already documented 3138 valid complaints that CN players filed against Love and Deepspace.
The initial complaint filed that started the group complaint roughly reads as follows (paragraphing added to make it easier to read):
According to Article 9 of the Law on the Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests (LPCRI): The operator may not, in a situation where consumers are unaware, set a different price point or charging standard for the same product or service provided under equal trading conditions.
Sylus is one of the male leads in Love and Deepspace, yet based on a large number of wish pool pull data collected, the probability of getting a Sylus card has been proven to be significantly lower than the probability of getting a card of any of the other three male leads. In the same standard wish pool, the other three male leads have 41 cards each while Sylus has only 17 cards (it is 29% probability of getting a card of one of the other three male leads, but a mere 12% probability of getting a card of Sylus).
Under the premise that all the cards have the same cost price, and with the probability of getting a Sylus card being far lower than the other three characters bound by the same wish pool rules, this means players have to spend more money in order to get Sylus’ card.
By sacrificing the probability of getting a Sylus card which directly affects Sylus stans, there is concern of possible inducement for players to forcibly spend money. We urge Papergames to clearly address the issue regarding Sylus’ missing standard cards, tell us when the missing standard cards will be added to the wish pool, and compensate the losses players have suffered as a result of the low probability!
Sylus Stans’ Requests
As the initial complaint filed has clearly stated, the main request is regarding the memories in the standard wish pool.
Material created by CN Sylus stan for the group's feedback purposes
When Love and Deepspace launched on January 18th last year, only three male leads were featured, namely Xavier, Zayne, and Rafayel. Right from the start, in the permanent standard wish pool “Xspace Echo”, each of the three male leads had five 5-star memories, eighteen 4-star memories, and eighteen 3-star memories. Over in the permanent Galaxy Explorer’s pool, each of three male leads also had the 4-star Heartfelt series solar pair memories.
After the v2.0 update on July 15th last year where Sylus was added as the fourth male lead, the permanent standard wish pool was updated with Sylus’ standard memories. However, what Sylus had were five 5-star memories, six 4-star memories, and six 3-star memories. In addition, he did not have the 4-star Heartfelt series solar pair memories in the Galaxy Explorer pool. The situation has stayed the same six months later.
It is of note that standard memories are not the only missing basic content for Sylus.
Materials created by CN Sylus stan for their group's feedback purposes
The other three male leads had three Anecdotes each since the game’s launch, while Sylus had only one since v2.0. The other three male leads had two Bond stories each since the game’s launch, while Sylus had only one since v2.0. The other three male leads had three 4-star standard Companions each since the game’s launch, while Sylus had only one since v2.0.
Not only does the missing basic content affect team-building for Sylus mains, it also affects the building of affinity level. Every missing 4-star memory would give 300 affinity points, every missing 3-star memory would give 100 affinity points — and this is not yet counting the affinity points that can be obtained via ranking up, upgrading, ascending, and awakening each missing memory. Each missing Anecdote would give 250 affinity points. Each missing Bond story would give 1,000 affinity points.
It is no wonder that Sylus stans are requesting Papergames to return Sylus’ missing standard memories, missing Heartfelt series memories, missing Anecdotes, missing Bond stories, and missing standard Companions. After all, it is hardly fair that the first three male leads were launched with all of their basic content available right away whereas Sylus was released with incomplete basic content and his basic content remains incomplete even after nearly half a year. That is, in the half a year when Sylus stans continuously made multiple feedback online via messaging customer service, posting on various social media platforms, and commenting under official posts. In the same half a year when Love and Deepspace pushed out twelve new limited-time banners featuring twenty-five new limited 5-star memories (eight of which were Sylus’) and eight new Promise 4-star memories (two of which were Sylus’).
Heightened Efforts Before v3.0 Pt. 2 Livestream
Even though various Chinese news outlets only started to pick up on this report two days before Love and Deepspace’s scheduled v3.0 Part 2 livestream, Sylus stans did not actually only start voicing their grievances recently.
On XiaoHongShu, one of the earliest posts calling for Sylus stans to send feedback to Love and Deepspace Customer Service was made on 31 July 2024, i.e. seventeen days after Sylus was added as a male lead. The very first point provided in the template attached to the post was precisely about Sylus’ missing standard memories. Around the end of September last year, CN Sylus stans also began sharing the reports they made to 12315 platform and urged fellow Sylus stans to submit their complaints regarding Sylus’ standard card drop probability. It was also from there where the same complaint template is adapted over for use on the Black Cat Complaint platform now.
However, previous calls to action were not as intense as the current ones. This time, CN Sylus stans are going all out in putting pressure on Papergames to officially address the issue as soon as possible. Besides continuing what they were already doing before—contacting Love and Deepspace Customer Service directly, commenting under official posts, posting on social media platforms, and writing into Black Cat Complaints and national 12315 platforms—they are making efforts in ensuring the topic tags #秦彻爆率# (Sylus’ drop probability), #恋与深空秦彻抽卡爆率低# (Love and Deepspace Sylus card drop probability low), and #叠纸未对玩家诉求做出回应# (Papergames has yet to address players’ requests) continue to trend on Weibo Hot Search as well.
One reason why there is heightened efforts right before the v3.0 Part 2 livestream is due to the worry that their requests would be left unheard even more should the upcoming game content confirmed during the livestream did not include anything about Sylus’ missing basic content.
Another reason was the appearance of posts on January 6th from people claiming to be “insiders” that gave highly controversial information. Some of those posts claimed that there were plans to fill in Sylus’ missing standard memories but the decision was reversed at the last moment. Since then, there have been a few equally dubious posts popping up on XiaoHongShu trying to build credence to the claim by showing evidence in the form of chat logs whose authenticity cannot be verified. Moreover, the chat messages contained accusations that paint the game’s planning team in a bad light while insinuating that the development team is a victim too in the entire situation.
Although CN Sylus stans have actively warned one another about these likely fake news dropped supposedly to stir up drama in the community, they are still enough to upset some Sylus stans and make them want to put pressure on Papergames further.
Still, even if there had been no controversial “insider” information present, the game company’s own Customer Service could have managed to upset CN Sylus stans anyway.
On the afternoon of January 9th, a screenshot of what appears to be a reply from Papergames’ Customer Service made its round on XiaoHongShu. The reply in the screenshot contained lines that seemingly tried to undermine CN Sylus stans’ fight for their consumer rights. The text message basically denied that there exists any problem with the card drop probability and requests the player to “not believe rumors”. Towards the end, it also added that “we are aware of the various untrue and wrong information currently circulating, our relevant departments will track these rumors and collect evidence as needed for future follow-up. We urge everyone to not be troubled by false information, and to not believe and not spread these rumors.”
The text message said to be sent by Papergames' Customer Service
What Can Global Sylus Stans Do?
While everyone is now waiting to see whether Papergames would be releasing an official statement addressing Sylus’ missing basic content tomorrow before or during the v3.0 Part 2 livestream, CN Sylus stans are still continuing to raise their requests to Customer Service. Some have already made posts on XiaoHongShu declaring they will personally stop spending any more money on the game until Papergames addresses their requests.
Global Sylus stans have not been sitting idly the past few days either. As the topic tags trended high on Weibo search, there have been several tweets posted on Twitter and videos on YouTube covering the matter.
Though global players may not be able to access Black Cat Complaints to join the group complaint, there’s still the Customer Service where players can direct their feedback and requests to. Players may contact EN Customer Service via in-game or [email](mailto:[email protected]). If you have a Weibo account, you can also repost relevant articles to allow the respective topic tags remain active.