How to "add" about twice as many hairstyles:

[Malmstrom]

Take all of the same models you currently have, and put them in again with or without an extra flair.

Ponytail with a big chunk hanging over your face? Now same ponytail minus big chunk.

Long hair but with a big giant swoop that looks goofy? No more swoop!

Take existing assets and plus or minus one thing to them, ta-da! Way more options!

[TheMightyMollusk]

Just mirroring the asymmetrical ones would make for a pile of new hairstyles.

[MsQi]

Just mirroring the asymmetrical ones would make for a pile of new hairstyles.

Or a switch like they do with facepaint.

[hynaku]

Couldn't they use the same program like we have for skyrim and fallout where converts bodys and gear to fit certain type of body. It load up all the gear hair at once and convert them.

[Vahlnir]

Couldn't they use the same program like we have for skyrim and fallout where converts bodys and gear to fit certain type of body. It load up all the gear hair at once and convert them.

I believe they had something similar in 1.0 but it was dropped for ARR onward because of technical limitations with the PS3.

[Antonio_Xul]

Unlocking race specific hair so all races can use them will add a few more, too.

[KitingGenbu]

Take all of the same models you currently have, and put them in again with or without an extra flair.

Ponytail with a big chunk hanging over your face? Now same ponytail minus big chunk.

Long hair but with a big giant swoop that looks goofy? No more swoop!

Take existing assets and plus or minus one thing to them, ta-da! Way more options!

I'm surprised you didn't notice that many of the 'hairstyles' already do that. You have multiple old hairstyles that are identical but just have different hair accessory colors/added or removed bangs. Maybe if they did away with those and just added the ability to change the accessory color/extra layers elsewhere instead of counting that as a hairstyle, they'd free up space.

[Malmstrom]

I'm surprised you didn't notice that many of the 'hairstyles' already do that. You have multiple old hairstyles that are identical but just have different hair accessory colors/added or removed bangs. Maybe if they did away with those and just added the ability to change the accessory color/extra layers elsewhere instead of counting that as a hairstyle, they'd free up space.

Kind of hard to NOT notice it. It's practically the basis of the post. There is a long haired style that goes over the shoulders, one with bangs and one without. It's the exact thing I "didn't notice" that I'm talking about. One change to the existing asset and you have something new.

So why not do it for all of them? Take the existing assets and add or subtract different things and boom, a bunch of new options.

[TabrisOmbrelame]

It's true that Viera doesn't have much Hairstyle to be chosen. More importantly, every single pieces of extre Hairstyle you can get through the game, like Palace of the Dead, Gold Saucer or even Eureka are USELESS because it add NOTHING for Viera.

I don't think that Hairstyle is a really big work like making armor for every race. Or at least, it's really faster to do it. I was hoping that 5.1 let's us the choose for more Hairstyle but, it's seems it isn't the cases.

So people here, I suggest something ! Why don't we all ask Naoki Yoshida for that in the next Live letter Or propose something when a new Hairstyle creation contest come ?

[Iscah]

I don't think that Hairstyle is a really big work like making armor for every race. Or at least, it's really faster to do it.

I'm sure it's still a lot of work. They're quite complex - lots of individual moving pieces that have to look nice and respond to physics (wind, movement, colliding with the shoulders) and not break or look ugly when moving.

I'm not sure if they'd have some kind of template, or if each one needs to be built from scratch. Maybe some basic models that get customised.