Adding my support as well, this is an absolute mockery of the original artist's design. The team is absolutely capable of making curly textures but never seems to want to do it on hair usable by the player. Why is this? Please do better, your players deserve better.
I really think this hairstyle needs to be redone. The original winner was clearly going for a textured hair approach, and the version we're receiving in game does a very poor job at portraying this. The game already struggled a lot when it comes to more diverse hair choices, and I am incredibly disappointed with how the winning hairstyle was executed in game.
Also adding my voice to support this thread.
All other winners have been implemented faithfully. Failing to recreate this hairstyle properly feels disrespectful.
It's so disgusting and ridiculous. Where the hell are the curls?
I said it already, but Dragons Dogma 2 and Elden Ring got quite excellent curly and coily (black) hairstyles.
Do better. This is abysmal. Stop failing your black players, thank you.
Agreed, knowing that textures similar to the original design already exist in game, and the care the designer put into it makes this attempt even more blatantly half-hearted and sloppy. It's extremely disappointing to see and I hope it's revised soon.
This hairstyle's execution is so deeply disappointing. What was shown in the patch notes just looks unfinished in its own right, and when you put it next to the design it was 'inspired by' its even worse. I don't believe that a textured/curly hairstyle like this is impossible to implement faithfully in-engine, and if they just weren't sure how to do so the devs should've held off on releasing this until they could do it justice. The designer and the players (especially black and POC players who've been asking for a hairstyle that represents them for years!) deserve better.
Adding my agreement. This implementation is atrocious, and, frankly, really racist (a clear instance of "whitewashing" a natural textured hairstyle).
Do better.
How much should we bet that they're not going to pull this "inspired by" bs when it comes to any of the straight hair winners, and they'll ACTUALLY put effort into replicating it? I was so excited to see some different hair textures in the game, you can tell a whole lot of these winners put more care into the designs, sucks to know that they're all going to be butchered to hell because SE decided to choose hairstyles they know they can't actually replicate in-game.
I fully agree with most people's takes here, this hair back in the contest looked extremely promising as FFXIV has a huge lack of curly hair in the current game and a really lacking customization, this would've been an incredible step in customization and variation but unfortunately the in game result of this hair's contest is close to an insult, I'm hoping that this can get reworked it does not matter how long it takes, as long as it actually looks like the hair shown in the contest.
Adding my support - I refuse to believe that this is the best CS3 can do.