Honor of Kings' new Supreme-tier skin for Xiao Qiao hasn't even officially launched yet and it's already in freefall — secondary market pre-order prices on Xianyu (China's eBay equivalent) cratered from ¥410+ to ¥380 overnight. The devs scrambled to release an 'optimization' plan, but when players actually looked at it, they couldn't help but laugh.
Here's the timeline: When news of the Xiao Qiao Supreme skin first dropped, Xianyu pre-orders were going for ¥410+ (for context, the previous Supreme skin for Li Bai mostly sat at ¥400). Buyers were even getting outbid. Then the actual skin got leaked — and it was a triple whammy: a jarring mecha robot popping up in her Skill 2, a splash art widely suspected to be AI-generated, and an ultimate ability VFX so phoned-in it might as well not exist. That combo nuked the pre-order price down to ¥380 practically overnight.
Faced with the tidal wave of backlash, the devs fired off an overnight fix. According to the original post, the main changes were lowering the probability of the mecha appearing in Skill 2 and tweaking the opacity of Skill 3's effects. But eagle-eyed players quickly exposed the catch — the character model? Untouched. The splash art? Untouched. The poster? Still the same. Everything they changed was just backend numbers anyone could tweak in minutes. One upvoted commenter nailed it: 'Saying I'll change it doesn't mean I actually changed anything. I didn't delete it — I just said I'd lower the probability. You can't even test whether it's actually lower. The real issue is the price is way too high.' Another player pointed out that the ultimate skill's effects just vanish instantly when it ends — not even a transition animation. Utterly jarring.
Beyond the 'optimization' itself, the comment section erupted into a full-blown gender war. Some players invoked the slang 'bros (referring to male players) are just too quiet,' demanded that 'male players' lives matter too,' and even dragged in the otaku rallying cry of 'if there's a male character, I'm not playing' (有男不玩). But the pushback was equally fierce — one commenter dropped a screenshot and fired back: 'Have you been playing too many waifu gachas to think anyone in a mainstream game cares about your 有男不玩 boycott? Previous Supreme skins for Wu Zetian, Daji, and Yaomei all had overwhelmingly female player bases as buyers. Why would the devs listen to men over the actual paying customers?' Another cut straight to the point: 'Tencent doesn't care about gender — they only care about making money.' Others noted that Xiao Qiao's player base skews heavily female, so adjusting her skin is just basic customer service, not 'caving to feminism.'
Long-time players also called out a classic dev playbook that's becoming a meme: release a deliberately nerfed version (Plan B) first, wait for the backlash, then drop the version that should've been the default (Plan A) as an 'optimization' to farm goodwill. As for what's actually wrong with the skin? One player's verdict was beautifully blunt: 'The problem isn't the mecha — it's just genuinely ugly.' Meanwhile, male players who'd been begging for a Lyu Bu skin fix were left seething. One commenter lamented: 'When will the devs finish with Xiao Qiao and address male players' demands for Lyu Bu? I've seen them go beg Diao Chan mains on Weibo for help.' — they're literally recruiting waifu mains to lobby for their husbando. That's how ignored they feel.
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