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

[Crerant]

Just another person chiming in saying this is uh not great. You've done curls in a couple spots before so why does this look awful? Hair in this game is always kind of a mess but this is just not good. Please reconsider implementing it in this state.

[lolnotacat]

Squenix really should give it another try. It's not like curly or kinky hair can't be done well in games. Even old ones.

[TheCat]

Disappointing. Especially as a female hrothgar with literally 4 hairs to choose from it's aggravating that they just keep adding variations of short hair. Even if they had executed the hairstyle well idk if I'd wanna use it. Give us LONG curly hair!

[ruruspaghetti]

Registered for the forum specifically to add my voice to the discontent towards the interpretation of this hair contest entry. FFXIV has a massive global playerbase, with many Black fans who are already given minimal options to see themselves reflected in the character creator. When the winning entries for the hair contest were announced, I saw many, many people who were excited for the specific entry that this adaptation frankly ruins in intent, in part because it would have added a sorely needed new option for textured hair among the currently lacking options.

I strongly hope the devs revise this hairstyle with a true commitment to player representation in mind.

[Tersi82]

Only giving us two of the winners and not even particularly good ones in over a year is insulting

[nikukurin]

Seconding this. It was so amazing to see the FFXIV team treat the representation in Dawntrail for Tuliyollal with so much care and respect that I want to see them move forward to better and better rep from there, but this one feels like a step back and is pretty disappointing. I hope the team considers redoing this or even pushing back the release of this hairstyle until they can figure out how to accurately present this with their engine! Would love to see more curly hairstyles since yoshi p has said they will work on improving the current character creation moving forward after fem hrothgar.

[mildlymoonstruck]

Commenting to add my support. Butchering the natural curls hairstyle that the original artist worked hard on - and made a point of detailing as much as they could to make implementing it easier on the devs - is quite frankly disgusting. Especially because like others have said, tight textured curls DO exist on certain NPC models in game already; it's not like they have no framework to work from. But even if they didn't and had to start from scratch to bring this hairstyle into the game, it is beyond unacceptable to be this careless about it, and apparently shrug off accountability for their decision to boot by tacking on the phrase "inspired by" when it really feels like what they meant is, "We couldn't be bothered."

[rizzuoli]

commenting to express my shared disappointment. if square enix was able to reverse the outcry against the ear-less hrothgar hairstyles, certainly they would be able to redo this considering that options for representation and good service to the contest winner are greater stakes than just it looking unfinished and unappealing.

[Errant-Rabbit-Fur]

Made an account just for this thread. I remember discussing the hairstyle contest winners with my friend and hoped the Natural Curls would be implemented in game. Seeing the hairstyle SE created was disappointing, to put it politely. I'm not a video game graphics expert, far from it. However, "inspired by" doesn't feel very inspired when the entry was bouncy curls and the players get "wet mop." I sincerely hope this is reviewed and redone to better honor the artist's vision. I'd use Natural Curls on my characters but not the Wish.com knock-off SE is attempting to give us.

[Aniise]

When I saw the hair in the patch notes yesterday, I immediately texted my friend (who doesn't even play anymore, sadly) and send her a picture of the hair out of pure disbelief how terrible it looks. I was at a loss for words, I could only laugh.
At that time I didn't even know it was a contest winner, which makes it even more terrible.
The hair that should look fluffy and cute looks unfinished, flat, greasy...I mean, this is just sad and disrespectful towards the creator of the hairstyle.

However, I don't want to assume this is some sort of racism-problem on the dev teams side, like some people in the tread wrote..that would take it too far.
I think it's more of the side of..not really trying or caring. Apathy, perhaps. Which doesn't really make it any better, clearly, but implying there were racist intentions by making it look ugly on purpose is kinda weird, not gonna lie.