I am once again asking for better 'textured' hairstyles

(for the purposes of this thread, replace the words 'curly' or 'textured' with 'african-american', 'african', 'ethnic', or whatever depending on how you're feeling at the moment--just know that I'm not talking about the curls you might imagine on, say, a ginger or someone similarly european, even though the game is lacking hair for them as well)

When I play MMOs, I like to build my character's appearances similarly to my own, but as a person with many blacker qualities this can range from semi-annoying but possible to almost demeaning or outright impossible depending on the game. Thankfully we're past the dark ages where half of every MMO had options for skin color amounting to 50 shades of sandy peach and a single shade of 'dark chocolate mixed with charcoal' (looking at you, early-2010s Mabinogi), but sadly we haven't really gotten to that point with hair.

It seems to be a trend among MMOs, especially Korean/Japanese MMOs, to have god-awful options for curly/textured hairstyles. I'm not entirely surprised or disappointed to see that FFXIV falls in line with them... but it would be nice to see a little more variety.

Take, for instance, the afro. The word 'afro' inspires a number of hairstyles that share that general poofiness, from the classic afro, to afro puffs, to the cruddy, coils, shaped up, etc.

Or if you want something with looser hair, you can go for long braids, waves, sisterlocks, twist out, etc., or just let it get frizzy and it works.

So many things you can do with textured hair. So many possibilities. Some examples: https://imgur.com/a/cvjEIV6 https://imgur.com/a/kxsKmBR

Now let's see what XIV has for us.

https://i.imgur.com/2fsLWkw.png

Sigh...

I remember when I was a sprout, resigned to using the pompadour ironically because I couldn't find anything that fit better. And then I heard that there was an afro for sale in the Gold Saucer! Perfect!

No, not perfect. It's quite possibly the ugliest hairstyle in the game (in my opinion), a spherical disco fro smashed over the head like a helmet. Yes, it's a hairstyle that people actually wear in real life, and it can look good... but the implementation of it in XIV 1. is god-awful, 2. was obviously made with the ironic 80s disco theme in mind, and 3. hurts especially when it's the only hairstyle with this texture in the entire game, Saucer and Online Store included.

I know that, due to their more homogeneous culture and racial demographics, Japanese media tends to either pretend black people don't exist or hit them with some nasty (though admittedly funny) stereotypes, but since so much of their playerbase these days is American, wouldn't it be cool if they, y'know... added some customization for those Americans?

Of course, not having these customizations certainly hasn't killed the game for me, nor is it even the biggest thing I'd want to be changed. But since we're redoing all the visuals anyway, it would be nice? Maybe?

I probably should have said something about this months ago...

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Originally Posted by NegativeS

Take, for instance, the afro. The word 'afro' inspires a number of hairstyles that share that general poofiness, from the classic afro, to afro puffs, to the cruddy, coils, shaped up, etc.

Or if you want something with looser hair, you can go for long braids, waves, sisterlocks, twist out, etc., or just let it get frizzy and it works.

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I think the problem there is "Asian MMO", because without any western artists and developers in the art department, that information doesn't get to them. Western MMO's don't fare much better though, and often not only is hair style is a problem, but also the skin color. This game doesn't fare too poorly on skin color varieties, they're just kind of tribe-locked. Doesn't explain why the hair is the way it is though.

If you want any kind of improvement on that front, someone has to go out there and take some photos of actual hair styles that you want to see.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

I think the problem there is "Asian MMO", because without any western artists and developers in the art department, that information doesn't get to them. Western MMO's don't fare much better though, and often not only is hair style is a problem, but also the skin color. This game doesn't fare too poorly on skin color varieties, they're just kind of tribe-locked. Doesn't explain why the hair is the way it is though.

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Yah, I mentioned this in the thread, which is why I think it's unlikely that it will ever happen.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

If you want any kind of improvement on that front, someone has to go out there and take some photos of actual hair styles that you want to see.

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I planned to include some pictures, but doing so went way over the character limit. Though to be fair, if some dev or artist can't picture in their minds eye what an 'afro' or 'braids' look like, they need to broaden their horizons a bit...

It's about time we get curly hair in this game; variety is what makes ongoing services valuable; netflix as an example.
Elden Ring got it right with their latest curly hairstyles; square enix could learn a lot from Fromsoftware.

Morever, if they add curly hairstyles they should look at 2024 styles, not something from the 19th century or the 1950s.

Frankly, it's 2024. If games like Elden Ring and Dragon's Dogma II can manage to have quite decent black hairstyles, so can this game.
Please, SE! We need the curls and the coils!

I agree with you, they should really improve on that front. Also, they do seem to have an international audience in mind (at least at this point), since they tried to be more culturally accurate in Dawntrail.

It's not much but if you look at the winning entries from the 2023 hair style contest there are two to three styles that might go into that direction ("Natural Curls", "Gold & Locs" and perhaps "The Elegant Twist").
https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...686c364efc07a2

As far as I understand, all winning entries will be implemented in the game so those hair styles should come in the future. The question is just how long it'll take.

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Originally Posted by Loggos

I agree with you, they should really improve on that front. Also, they do seem to have an international audience in mind (at least at this point), since they tried to be more culturally accurate in Dawntrail.

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It is this point that made me particularly disappointed in seeing their first choice of implementation from the hairstyle contest winners' selection. Considering that Tural is supposed to be very culturally diverse in-universe, too, I was really hoping one of the first hairstyles they implemented would have been one of the three you mentioned.

They're even unlikely anything I'd have a character switch to myself; it's just that it feels more fair to have them. The vast majority of hairstyles we have are straight, and we got two more straight ones added. The last textured hairstyle they attempted was that dud of an afro from 2015, and they've gotten considerably better at working within their limitations since then.

Well, regardless, I hope they implement those natural/curly hairstyles sooner than later. I only get a little nervous about it since some (well, I think just one? a masculine-looking samurai-styled ponytail?) previous hairstyle contest winners never made it in. It'd be cool if they un-genderlocked that one long dreadlocks hairstyle, too.

Here's hoping.

Granted I'm not black personally, but I have 3B curly hair in rl, so I would love to see more curly hairstyles in the game.

For reference here's a chart:

https://i.gyazo.com/8afd16d3d130e6cd...bb55d80333.jpg

So far we only have type 2 wavy hair in the game (plus the one afro that people only ever use ironically...), so it's about time the range gets expanded to type 3 and 4 curls and coils.

I think there is demand for more curly hairstyles from straight hair people too, considering how popular curling wands, rollers and the likes are :D

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Originally Posted by TheCat

Granted I'm not black personally, but I have 3B curly hair in rl, so I would love to see more curly hairstyles in the game.

For reference here's a chart:

snip

So far we only have type 2 wavy hair in the game (plus the one afro that people only ever use ironically...), so it's about time the range gets expanded to type 3 and 4 curls and coils.

I think there is demand for more curly hairstyles from straight hair people too, considering how popular curling wands, rollers and the likes are :D

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Yeah, it's honestly weird. I know I purposefully excluded more fair-toned people from the OP, but looking at the current selection of hairstyles again, it's weird how there's next to no options for curls, at all. I know it's Final Fantasy and everyone is supposed to either be a Super Saiyan edgelord or a Tifa, but for an MMO with one of the best character creators, it sucks that they're lacking in such an obvious area.

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Originally Posted by NegativeS

when it's the only hairstyle with this texture in the entire game

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It isn't. The one for fem hyurs is actually adorable. Also I think it's extremely cringe for you to jump to the conclusion that a lack of hairstyles is due to the devs being Asian and ignorant and not the simple fact that curly and frizzy textured hair can't easily be done in a way that looks good. It's a pretty common shortcoming in games especially older ones unless the devs really go out of their way.