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

[Jnuhl]

How are people so sure it's meant to be the style posted in the fan submission? The notes say it was inspired by an 'entry', and it sounds like the fanart everyone is referring to was an actual winner.

Is it not possible this hairstyle was simply based off a non-winning entry that someone else submitted? If there were more defining characteristics present, like a braid or feather or something, it would be a lot more obvious, as is it's hard to tell anything from those low quality preview pics.

Assuming this question is being asked in good faith, I'd like to draw your attention to the nearly identical hairlines of the entry and the preview:

EDIT: img embed isn't working so https://imgur.com/a/Sw15cJk
(sorry it's sloppy i made it in paint)

Even with the crunchiness, it looks to me to be very clearly meant to be the same style as in the entry

[Birdbrain]

Assuming this question is being asked in good faith

Huh?

I'm asking because the contest disclaimer says that winning entries aren't guaranteed implementation and they may also implement non-winning entries. I'm wondering if it could be someone else's submission instead. It's not obvious to me, and others are saying it's a big stylistic difference from the submission, so maybe it could be something else. If you're convinced then ok, go off then.

[elyelu]

How are people so sure it's meant to be the style posted in the fan submission? The notes say it was inspired by an 'entry', and it sounds like the fanart everyone is referring to was an actual winner.

Is it not possible this hairstyle was simply based off a non-winning entry that someone else submitted? If there were more defining characteristics present, like a braid or feather or something, it would be a lot more obvious, as is it's hard to tell anything from those low quality preview pics.

In the 2015 Hairstyle Design Contest (initial announcement / results), even though only the grand prize was guaranteed to be implemented into the game, all the runner-up designs were also implemented between Heavensward and Shadowbringers. That contest's implementation clause was "[entries] other than the grand prize winner... deemed to be excellent... [possibly] will be implemented in the future", but the only ones implemented from the contest were the ones shown in the results. Although the clause was changed in the 2023 contest ("entries that did not win may also be selected for implementation in the future"), that behavior suggests any hairstyles created referencing the 2023 Hairstyle Design Contest will reference one of the 40 designs that were shown. We already saw this with "It Takes Two", which was directly based on "ジャンドゥレーヌ☆MAGIC" and whose addition was not captioned with being "inspired" by the submission. It would be a drastic change in behavior if they actually started using entries that did not win, but were also not shown on the results post.

There are technically several winning designs that are short and wavy or curly that the hair might have been "inspired" by. Link to the 2023 winners for reference: hairstyles we could consider "short and wavy" or "short and curly" in this scenario include Row 3, "ふわふわツーブロック"; Row 6, "ウルフィーユ"; Row 7, "Natural curls" (posted by OP); Row 8, "外はねデコ出し片目隠れ"; Row 12, "フラッフィーサマーヘア" and "ふんわり前下がりマッシュ"; and Row 15, "Curly Bob". All hairs listed except "Natural curls", "外はねデコ出し片目隠れ", and "Curly Bob" either have noticeably different bangs or hair on the nape that suggest they weren't used for reference. As the implemented hair has thin, separated hair strands, "Natural curls" is the most likely inspiration, then "Curly Bob", and very last "外はねデコ出し片目隠れ".

Even if the hair is inspired by "Curly Bob" and not "Natural Curls", it's still poorly referenced. The actual hair retained the partitioned bangs of both styles, but made the hair wavy and flat. It's barely recognizable as inspired by any of the designs shown, and that in itself is insulting.

[Jnuhl]

chiming in to voice my disappointment with the new hairstyle as well, as much of an understatement as that is. "inspired by" is such an insult to the original artist that it makes me angry to even think about. and to everyone crying about limitations of the engine: how hard would it have been to just put a curly texture over a rounded hairstyle with more volume? they were able to do it for the horrible joke afro hairstyle, and for the handful of Highlander hairstyles that have a curl or two. what was the point of updating all the graphics if they still can't be used to display hair texture that a LARGE chunk of their player base have naturally growing on their heads? at this point they can take inspiration from many other games that have managed this when they can't. even Animal Crossing has cartoony, low-poly interpretations of textured hair options.

I was excited for this new hairstyle but it just looks so bad and soggy and wet. i'm angry and sad and i hope they can see all the outrage and make a statement about it, at the very least promising to actually implement the design contest winner and not make something "inspired by", if not also apologizing to the artist for this poor excuse of an interpretation of their work.

[Rayne6665]

Wtf is that hairstyle lmfao

[Ricooooooo]

This feels like such a low blow to the people who play this game and have this type of hair, including me. I genuinely thought we were finally gonna get some good POC hair options Madly disappointing

[cooking_da_meatball]

it's quite disappointing how a hairstyle i was excited to see added to the game has quickly become one of my least favorite hairstyle designs in quite a long time. i would prefer that more time be taken (and, frankly, extra care) to recreate the winning hairstyle as depicted in the contest entry, rather than what has been shown in the patch notes.

[EdenElsewhere]

I normally try and avoid the forums, but I also put forth my support in having this hair changed to something closer to the original entry and that whoever okayed this rendering of this hairstyle needs their eyes checked.

[Ashenri]

when you look at hildibrand's hairline after he gets blown up its pretty clear that the team that handles character graphics Can at least somewhat do curly hair so i don't understand why this turned out as bad as it did? if they weren't gonna stick to the submitted design there were other hairs they could've picked from

[hinganblue]

Decided to register an account just to add my voice to the discussion. Not only does this decision feel disrespectful to the original designer, but it contributes to an ongoing issue concerning a lack of black/brown representation in the game at large — heck, only recently did they adjust the lighting so that people could properly see their darker-skinned WoLs in cutscenes. But while they may be listening to fan concerns about issues with lighting, there is STILL a lack of diverse options for textured hairstyles in FFXIV. It feels incredibly tone deaf to take a design that was clearly intended for black/brown characters and tweak it until it's unrecognizable, and certainly not what its designer intended. I really hope they fix this. I'm deeply disappointed.