Scoreboards no longer have #placeholder entities

When creating a scoreboard command, the # symbol could be used to create a virtual entity with scores attached to it. It seems this no longer is the case as of 1.18.12 where:

/scoreboard players set #placeholder score 3

no longer works and outputs a syntax error

Mind you, said virtual entities are still in the map, but their scores can only be listed and not changed
Honestly not sure what I want from making a post about it, but I have an adventure map that may as well rely on this ONE use of the scoreboard command and it's completely broken now so that sucks