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

[Majjjii]

When I saw the patch notes this morning, I honestly didn't recognize the hairstyle at all and didn't find out until much later which one it was supposed to be. For a game already severely lacking in diverse hair options, it's absolutely disappointing to see how this was implemented, and I find the wording "Inspired by" to be egregious at best as that's never been used for an entry in the past. I hope the team will take the time to review the feedback that's been provided in this thread and reconsider releasing this hair as is.

[lucatracy]

had to make a forum account just to reply to this thread.
squeenix backpedaled and redid some grapes when people noticed how low quality they were.

Unfortunately (for them), in this case they can't make any profit off of it by real-time merch or furnishing. Looks like we'll have to wait double that time to get any fixes, if they even bother to address it at the very least..

[Talael]

Its been a long time since SE put any good looking hair style in this game.

[slingbees]

I doesn't say that it's from a winning entry and they have been known to sometimes use entries that didn't win, so I wonder if it's one of the hairs that didn't win? They didn't do it with hair yet, but they do it with furniture all the time. They usually put "A winning entry from the FFXIV Hairstyle Design Contest is now available." and this it the only time I remember seeing it not say WINNING, it only says entry.

I was wondering this myself at first, but the sections of the hair are nearly identically placed, down to a couple of loose hairs at the roe's temple, I know they sometimes implement items (far more frequently than hair) that were not winning submissions, but this is too close, if this isn't the same hair I would hope they come out and address that in response to this thread, because with what we see on the public facing side, it's pretty unlikely it's anything else. It's far too similar not to be.

[applecup]

when i saw the patch notes this morning i was underwhelmed by the hair as it is, but seeing that it's supposed to be 'inspired by' that design... wow. that's actually insultingly bad. the artists for this game can and have done much better, so why the poor effort here? it looks reflects on the company extremely poorly to say the least.

you can do better than this.

[Mesarthim]

I'm using PoTD hair. Haven't changed it in a couple of years now. Great Lengths wasn't quite my style as I wanted more bangs covering the forehead.

[Atlas_Two]

I was really excited to finally see a more textured hair style getting added to the game but its so disappointing to see it compared to the original concept art :< it completely loses the cute round and curly silhouette of the original and makes the curls looser and flatter, making it look more like wet hair than actually wavy or curly hair. I understand that curly hair like the original concept could be difficult to pull off, but I feel like there had to be a better way to make it? The original natural curls looks so cute and bouncy and curly and they just butchered all of the charm it had :/

[Sidora]

How is it that all the other designs were exact duplicates of their items, but this one hairstyle we can't get copied precisely? We need more textured hair options! I know it's an outdated system to some extent but come on! We got the graphics update for a reason, don't disappoint us now.

[Roda]

As someone who could pass as the miqo'te in the art at times (my curls aren't quite as tight) I'm quite disappointed in the results...

That entry was clearly intended to fill the curly hair niche that this game's hair library has been neglecting for so long... And they just gave up and made it this limp, wet, wavy look?
This was the one winner that I was looking forward to seeing the most too T_T


Like it's not a bad hairstyle in its own right, but... "inspired by" is the most generous description you could've used. Like.. yeah it's technically short, not-straight hair... Sure?

Do we need to post in depth breakdowns of references like we did with the character models to get them to see how curly hair actually looks??

:///

[romanh0liday]

chiming in to include my disappointment.

square enix needs to do better and do justice to this hair style. while were at it, include more natural hair, curls, and locs in general. there is much in the way of straight hair options. more textured hair, please.