New 7.1 hairstyle looks nothing like the winning hairstyle from the 2023 contest

[AdairKiba]

Seeing this hairstyle in the patch notes, I was shocked at how bad it looks before I knew it was a winning player design. It is unexpectedly low resolution, somehow looking crunchy and wet at the same time.

Once I saw that it was meant to represent THIS adorable, natural Black curly hairstyle... I don't have the words. I am shocked and appalled that this has been so badly butchered in-game.

My heart breaks for the artist, and for all players who were excited to finally have options other than a stereotypical afro or like one locs style to choose from for their characters.

I sincerely hope the dev team will revisit this design and be more respectful of the artist's intent.

Natural curls are beautiful and deserve to be represented in Final Fantasy.

[Aneshda]

I am not 100% sure but I think on the Picture of the new PvP Gear from 7.1 the second Character has this new Hair Style in red.

https://de.finalfantasyxiv.com/dawntrail/patch_7_1/

[Melianae]

Hello, I’m the original creator and artist and i just wanted to say thank you for fighting to fix the hair or at lest have SE do better for the other hairstyles that won.

I understood that the hair would not be an exact 1 to 1 to my design but , since i saw how to treated previous designs that won including my mch gun, i had assumed that would at lest find a way to make it somewhat recognizable.

The thing that really bothers me is the fact that I made this hair for my friends and for people who needed this representation.
All three of the hairs i submitted were made with them in mind while i specifically also toned it down enough that they could be used with non poc characters. Especially since curly hair is something that anyone of any skin color and ethnicity could have. (Which is why i even added the examples of non dark skinned characters using it)

When the hair won, i had so many heartfelt and emotional thank you messages from so many people around the world because their hair was finally going to be in game.
So many people who were just happy to finally be themselves.
Now i’m just here so angry and disappointed for them because not only does it look nothing like it while being of strange odd quality, it just also feels like they didn't even try and now all those players lost something they needed.

I would love to be wrong. I would love to learn that someone tried really hard, and even fought to have more curly hair in the game.
Cause atlest then it wouldn't be such a letdown or betrayal.


I want to end with, i know the dev team is probably overworked and overwhelmed. And i do not mean them any hate or bad words. I just wish they can take their time and get things right next time.

Sorry for the long post. And thank you.

I don't know what to say more than this + all the things other people have said, except that I am very disappointed. We all know the work the dev team does to give us a good experience. But this is not that. The game has 10+ years and it's the first time in all those years that textured hairstyle is added (apart from the locks and the afro, which are not great at all). It would be great to consider not adding it to this patch and wait more to have the time to remake it, this time by following the reference. The wording "inspired by" doesn't excuse this. We had a graphical update, i'm sure something can be done. Please.

[axolotelle]

Adding my +1 to what has been said here. I work in the game industry, I know textured styles require a different method to build, so I understand this was a difficult task for the team, but I don't think the results reflects the winning entry's intention. I know the art team wants to make beautiful hairs and we want that too! This one just doesn't meet the expected quality for me.

It would mean a lot to the POC fanbase if this style got a second pass to more accurately represent curly hair and the original concept. It could be released as a new hairstyle if there's concern about players who liked the current appearance.

[Roda]

I am not 100% sure but I think on the Picture of the new PvP Gear from 7.1 the second Character has this new Hair Style in red.

https://de.finalfantasyxiv.com/dawntrail/patch_7_1/

I believe it is this existing hairstyle

[Yua_Narukami]

I'm also seconding what the majority of people are saying here. It's really gross when a textured hairstyle looks like a sopping wet cat when that was not the intention at all. I know the dev team can do better and I wish they worked on it more.

[elyelu]

+1. I don't have much to add that I haven't seen added already, but it's disappointing that this is the only hair out of the at least eight hairstyle contest winners that has been implemented in the game, but was only used as "inspiration" and not implemented directly. I wish these textures and models would be genuinely implemented in the game instead of being used as inspiration, and I wish my friends would be able to see themselves and parts of their appearances reflected in their characters

[MAJRIS]

Does the game handle curly hair like that well though? The pompadour and Affro are like 1 flat cylinder/ball with a texture not actually curls.

exactly.
To have such hair in good quality it would need the amount of polygons of whole character.

For those that say the new hair is bad, it would be nice to provide example or suggest way how to model the hair to not completely fry gpus with millions of hair strings.
The player-provided examples from other games sadly don't look appealing.

[Roukiz]

Yoshi P harping on about dawntrail showcasing different peoples and cultures, and their customization option output is 98% white anime character type trash.
What they did to that artist's design is not only a slap in the face but borderline racist/white-washing.

But what else can we expect from the common japanese/asian artist/developers. We see it so often with games like genshin, taking surface level inspiration from historied peoples and cultures, but when it comes to bodily diversity and representation, everyone lightskin and straight haired.
These developers are a joke.

- ps the design they made looks like a sopping mass of greased noodles that would stink up the zone you loaded into. disgusting lmao

[Thanaturgist]

It's so disappointing to see. I was excited for this hairstyle and to see it executed so poorly is a bummer