I am once again asking for better 'textured' hairstyles

[sagacious]

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:



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

vey nice I'd like to see all this added, but they are a Asian company and they don't have a diverse population and I suppose their workers don't like curly hair.

[Mouthbone]

but for an MMO with one of the best character creators, it sucks that they're lacking in such an obvious area.

You have to be kidding LOL

[NegativeS]

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

In my defense, this is something observable in pretty much every Korean or Asian MMO. I'm not faulting them for it, but when it comes to lack of representation, ignorance is usually the first non-malicious reason that comes to mind.

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.

Well,

1. It wouldn't be too hard for them to use their existing texture for Curls with at least reasonably better models. Shorter afros and afro puffs are just a single modeling session away.

2. There are already braids textures in the game, decent cornrows and long thin braids are a half-step away already.

3. Considering they're doing an overhaul of the graphics in 7.0, I don't think the 'older game' argument holds much water. But for what water it does hold, take a look at World of Warcraft, whose current graphics are currently at least several years old, with a number of perfectly serviceable options along this vein. For all the problems WoW has, exclusivity is not one of them (though tbf they still have one foot in that 'dark chocolate mixed with charcoal' puddle mentioned in the OP)



Not asking for them to model every individual strand of hair.

[Azureskies01]

Im'a have to say naw dawg. Compared to anything else in the game they could be working on that more people would enjoy just....no

[Len_]

snip

Ok so you're up in arms that XIV has ONE fewer hairstyle than WoW that would satisfy your need for """inclusivity"""? It's almost like this is about as much as you can do within the limitations of MMO cartoon graphics. Also black people are not the only ones with curly hair. You really come across as not serious.

[NegativeS]

You have to be kidding LOL

Maybe a little. Certainly better than ones I've played.

Im'a have to say naw dawg. Compared to anything else in the game they could be working on that more people would enjoy just....no

Can't really argue with that, but I find it hard to believe that adding a few textured hairstyles would be that big of a dev time sink.

Ok so you're up in arms that XIV has ONE fewer hairstyle than WoW that would satisfy your need for """inclusivity"""? It's almost like this is about as much as you can do within the limitations of MMO cartoon graphics. Also black people are not the only ones with curly hair. You really come across as not serious.

The fact that you're getting inflamed about this makes me doubt that you have good intentions with this conversation.

If you can point me towards decent alternatives to the WoW hairstyles I posted that exist in XIV, though, I will eat my bandana and clamp the OP in a spoiler tag.

[Doopliss]

Ok so you're up in arms that XIV has ONE fewer hairstyle than WoW that would satisfy your need for """inclusivity"""? It's almost like this is about as much as you can do within the limitations of MMO cartoon graphics. Also black people are not the only ones with curly hair. You really come across as not serious.

Come on, man. You can't be fighting for them to return the original character stylization to the updated graphics, and then come over here and argue that stylized curly hair is too complex for them. I don't understand why this is gettin' you heated.

Black people aren't the only ones with curly hair but they are by far the vast majority who possess 4a-4c styles, which are criminally unrepresented hair textures in nigh everything.

One of the styles like that you even mentioned is locked to fem Midlanders. The dreadlocks are also locked to fem races. You can clearly see OP has a male Roegadyn character, so their only option is that insulting afro. The best they have otherwise is straight hair with some braids.

[Keumjo]

If they can spend man-hours addressing and fixing the 2B butt armor not being plump enough, they can do this and any other number of requests.

[Len_]

Come on, man. You can't be fighting for them to return the original character stylization to the updated graphics, and then come over here and argue that stylized curly hair is too complex for them. I don't understand why this is gettin' you heated.

Black people aren't the only ones with curly hair but they are by far the vast majority who possess 4a-4c styles, which are criminally unrepresented hair textures in nigh everything.

One of the styles like that you even mentioned is locked to fem Midlanders. The dreadlocks are also locked to fem races. You can clearly see OP has a male Roegadyn character, so their only option is that insulting afro. The best they have otherwise is straight hair with some braids.

I didn't say it was "too complex" for them. I said it's probably the reason why there aren't more hairstyles rather than the devs being Japanese and therefore not wanting to be inclusive. He then posted a Western game example which is really not any better so why even jump to such a conclusion anyway? Also it's not my job to charitably interpret OP's post when he's saying wrong things. You can wish for more curly hairstyles without the "woe is me the devs don't care about black people" histrionics.

I really don't mean this with ill will, I'm really just confused.

But how else am I supposed to interpret this...?

Regardless, I don't really care about trying to argue. I'm mostly just surprised 'cause of the threads we've mutually posted in. This just feels like a weird lack of empathy to me.

People can be up in arms and angry about the graphics update (for a reminder, I do agree that the character updates are mostly bogus and the amount of bugs are concerning!) but not the fact they haven't been able to use a hairstyle with the same texture as their own for a decade?

I do agree with you that people shouldn't generalize Japan, Korea, China, etc. That happens a lot here. It's shitty and racist. But in this case I think it's just emotion and noticing a pattern that is, unfortunately, real. I mean, it's also ignorant to ignore that Japan has a really, really intense history of colorism and blackface as well. We still see it even slip through some of their modern media (for the record, I don't think the USA is any better in reality lol).

Like, again, I kind of understand where you're coming from, but please have some empathy here.

Do you understand where I'm coming from? I do have empathy that's why I correctly pointed out that these type of hairstyles are more difficult to achieve in a way that's creative and looks good in games and it's due to the fact that they require more creative and advanced rendering techniques and not necessarily inherent racism. I don't accept that such editorializing like "the devs are Asian and so I get why they don't care about being inclusive" are justified because you aren't satisfied with the hair in a video game. So no, I'm not gonna not object to that in the name of "empathy." It's ridiculous.

If it would help you understand, imagine if in the benchmark feedback people were saying all the lips look different because the devs are Asian and therefore think ethnic features are ugly and made all the lips thinner. Would that not sound unhinged to you let alone beside the point? I mean maybe not but it does to me.

[Doopliss]

I didn't say it was "too complex" for them. I said it's probably the reason why there aren't more hairstyles rather than the devs being Japanese and therefore not wanting to be inclusive. He then posted a Western game example which is really not any better so why even jump to such a conclusion anyway? Also it's not my job to charitably interpret OP's post when he's saying wrong things. You can wish for more curly hairstyles without the "woe is me the devs don't care about black people" histrionics.

I really don't mean this with ill will, I'm really just confused.

It's almost like this is about as much as you can do within the limitations of MMO cartoon graphics.

But how else am I supposed to interpret this...?

Regardless, I don't really care about trying to argue. I'm mostly just surprised 'cause of the threads we've mutually posted in. This just feels like a weird lack of empathy to me.

People can be up in arms and angry about the graphics update (for a reminder, I do agree that the character updates are mostly bogus and the amount of bugs are concerning!) but not the fact they haven't been able to use a hairstyle with the same texture as their own for a decade?

I do agree with you that people shouldn't generalize Japan, Korea, China, etc. That happens a lot here. It's shitty and racist. But in this case I think it's just emotion and noticing a pattern that is, unfortunately, real. I mean, it's also ignorant to ignore that Japan has a really, really intense history of colorism and blackface as well. We still see it even slip through some of their modern media (for the record, I don't think the USA is any better in reality lol).

Like, again, I kind of understand where you're coming from, but please have some empathy here.

---------------------------------------------------------

Do you understand where I'm coming from? I do have empathy that's why I correctly pointed out that these type of hairstyles are more difficult to achieve in a way that's creative and looks good in games and it's due to the fact that they require more creative and advanced rendering techniques and not necessarily inherent racism. I don't accept that such editorializing like "the devs are Asian and so I get why they don't care about being inclusive" are justified because you aren't satisfied with the hair in a video game. So no, I'm not gonna not object to that in the name of "empathy." It's ridiculous.

If it would help you understand, imagine if in the benchmark feedback people were saying all the lips look different because the devs are Asian and therefore think ethnic features are ugly and made all the lips thinner. Would that not sound unhinged to you let alone beside the point? I mean maybe not but it does to me.

What the OP actually said was:

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?

These are true things about Japan. Just like how there is equally unbecoming and far nastier shit true about Northern America. They did not specify "asians". I hate saying this, but you're the one generalizing people here. They specified Japan and only mentioned things that actually are statistically true that even Japanese activists tend to bemoan and are trying to change. I get how their wording isn't exactly great but, again, come on, man.

The only other thing I can assume is questionable to you that they mentioned is the fact that these hairstyles are specifically absent in a lot of KR/JP MMORPGS. And, yeah, there are a LOT of Korean MMORPGS--I would know, playing a ton of them was my hobby as a kid and a fair bit into adulthood. The only options that frequently showed up in these MMORPGS were the "joke afro". It's not weird to notice this pattern. The only other JP MMORPG I played was PSO2, which also succumbed to this.

I'm not trying to be rude, but you don't need to generalize a criticism of Japan by turning it into a nebulous criticism of "all asian people". It's a little infantilizing, and it's okay to point out that some countries present weird patterns in their media.