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

[AstrologyBF]

Hello.

Thank you for all your feedback on the hairstyle that will be implemented in Patch 7.1. We would like to apologize for the major confusion we have caused.

For this patch, we started work to implement "Natural Curls" from the winning entries of the Hairstyle Design Contest, based on the idea of adding not only straight hair but also a variety of other hairstyles.

However, as the development work progressed, the light, delicate, and voluminous curls required for Natural Curls could not be implemented perfectly, despite implementation of the recent graphical update in FFXIV, due to limitations such as the polygon count.

Therefore, the finished result is a hairstyle that has not been implemented as Natural Curls, but as a wavy bob hairstyle, which is called "Doing the Wave" in-game.

However, since we did use the winning entry as a reference in the development process, we included a statement to that effect in the patch notes. We are deeply sorry that this has resulted in a great deal of confusion and concern.

Although we were not able to make it happen this time, the development team will continue to strive to implement many more hairstyles in the future. As for Natural Curls, which was not implemented in Patch 7.1, we will persevere in our efforts to look for other ways to implement this hairstyle.

We appreciate your feedback and hope you continue to enjoy FFXIV!

Not going to touch the speciousness of the “technical limitations” argument in 2024 (lol, lmao even), but I will point out that it is very telling that at no point did anyone on the development team see fit to contact the original artist - they found out *after* it was already becoming general knowledge.

Y’all need to stop having such a cavalier attitude towards fellow creatives.

[Caro178]

Not going to touch the speciousness of the “technical limitations” argument in 2024 (lol, lmao even), but I will point out that it is very telling that at no point did anyone on the development team see fit to contact the original artist - they found out *after* it was already becoming general knowledge.

Y’all need to stop having such a cavalier attitude towards fellow creatives.

I'm really not defending them but it's in the fine print of all contests that once you submit a design it doesn't belong to you anymore therefore they're under no legal obligation to contact you if the item is implemented into the game or if changes are made to it. SE is a company and companies thrive by their fine print. They never credit their fan artists outside of the collective "these were designed by fans".

[AstrologyBF]

I'm really not defending them but it's in the fine print of all contests that once you submit a design it doesn't belong to you anymore therefore they're under no legal obligation to contact you if the item is implemented into the game or if changes are made to it. SE is a company and companies thrive by their fine print. They never credit their fan artists outside of the collective "these were designed by fans".

I’m not under a legal obligation to return the shopping cart, but one still does so as a matter of interhuman respect.

[Bonoki]

I’m not under a legal obligation to return the shopping cart, but one still does so as a matter of interhuman respect.

This apples to oranges analogy is so wildly off base that I don't even know how to respond to this in a constructive manner.

[Caro178]

I’m not under a legal obligation to return the shopping cart, but one still does so as a matter of interhuman respect.

This argument is irrelevant to the subject at hand and engaging with it would be a waste of anybody's time.

Instead of being outraged that they didn't do a thing that would have put them legal jeopardy over a cosmetic the artist signed away ownership of when they entered the contest you should encourage them to try again to implement "Natural Curls" in the future. Make a sincere request. Hope this reaches the correct internal channels (which it already did if they were able to get the detailed story of how the sketch became this model) and they give it another go. There are also other black hairstyles among the winning selection and this controversy will encourage them to treat the implementation of those styles with more respect for accuracy.

[MiloslavBlazena]

Hello.

Thank you for all your feedback on the hairstyle that will be implemented in Patch 7.1. We would like to apologize for the major confusion we have caused.

For this patch, we started work to implement "Natural Curls" from the winning entries of the Hairstyle Design Contest, based on the idea of adding not only straight hair but also a variety of other hairstyles.

However, as the development work progressed, the light, delicate, and voluminous curls required for Natural Curls could not be implemented perfectly, despite implementation of the recent graphical update in FFXIV, due to limitations such as the polygon count.

Therefore, the finished result is a hairstyle that has not been implemented as Natural Curls, but as a wavy bob hairstyle, which is called "Doing the Wave" in-game.

However, since we did use the winning entry as a reference in the development process, we included a statement to that effect in the patch notes. We are deeply sorry that this has resulted in a great deal of confusion and concern.

Although we were not able to make it happen this time, the development team will continue to strive to implement many more hairstyles in the future. As for Natural Curls, which was not implemented in Patch 7.1, we will persevere in our efforts to look for other ways to implement this hairstyle.

We appreciate your feedback and hope you continue to enjoy FFXIV!

The response is appreciated, but this is not doing good enough. As images posted in this thread previously has shown, curls are possible for hairstyles via textures/hair cards. This hairstyle can be replicated by duplicated hair cards representing curls if the polygon maximum is too low.

Of course, there would be some complaints if the hair style looked lower quality, but in my opinion that is likely shared among all the other posters in this thread, I would rather have a more accurate representation of the hair than a high-quality one by the developer's standards. Sometimes the intention of representation matters more than the final quality, which in the case, delivered something completely different.

[Fatch38]

and when ppl will see the 3 hairstyles coming directly to mogstation, forum will be on fire ?

[ForteNightshade]

Not going to touch the speciousness of the “technical limitations” argument in 2024 (lol, lmao even), but I will point out that it is very telling that at no point did anyone on the development team see fit to contact the original artist - they found out *after* it was already becoming general knowledge.

Y’all need to stop having such a cavalier attitude towards fellow creatives.

This right here is the problem. All they needed to do put an addendum when the patch notes released, something to the extent of:

"While we originally intended to implement "Natural Curls," development proved significantly more challenging than anticipation. Therefore, we have opted to release a different hairstyle and will continue to work on "Natural Curls" so it may better represent the creativity of the artist and maintain the standards you've come to expect from FFXIV. We appreciate your feedback and apologize for this setback."

Would people still be upset? Some, absolutely. But there wouldn't be this blowback if they took it on the chin to start. Instead, they slapped "inspired by" on a model that looks nothing like the artist render and hoped no one would notice.