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

[Meteor-Panda]

As someone who has ringlet curly hair infelt so insulted with that rendition.

Its got 0 volume, bounce and its legit the same 2d planes technique used over and over

[starguardian]

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.

even if it wasn't a choice made out of active spite, you don't have to be consciously malicious to cause harm to marginalized groups. (this is true of other things too, like someone who only has a stairway up to their store without realizing the lack of wheelchair accessibility.) it's good to seek out education on different subjects and consider blind spots in yourself, especially when you are designing things for the general public to use. i hope that makes sense. it isn't as if the game has just launched, either; people have expressed a wish for more diverse character creation for a long time. regardless of intentions, this is something i think they should learn from and try to correct.

[lastfalseact]

Replying to this thread to also show support! This is really disappointing and I hope the devs can do a bit better. I didn't even recognize it as the same hairstyle. Black FFXIV players should have the opportunity to see themselves better represented within the game.

[reflettage]

Not a frequent forum-goer but I want to voice my displeasure as well. The original design shows VERY clearly that the intended hair type is around 3C or higher, whereas the hair we're getting in-game has been toned WAY down to around 2A:


"Inspired by" does not excuse this. The artist provided clear and concise depictions of their vision, including color-coded sectioning of the hair, multiple angles, and even a "with hat" view. If they styled it slightly different, but kept the overall look and feel, that's one thing. But this is blatantly removing the single most defining feature of the design -- tight, bouncy curls, most commonly associated with people of African descent, hence the dark-skinned model used in the design -- in favor of some sort of "wet dog" aesthetic. We currently don't have any hair that looks remotely similar to the "Natural Curls" design, there was NO reason to change it to the point of being nigh unrecognizable.

Just to be clear I'm not accusing the artist(s) of racism or otherwise malicious intent, nor am I placing blame squarely on their shoulders -- they might have done the actual designing/modeling part, but the higher-ups approved it every step of the way (and it's entirely possible the artist(s) were instructed to make these changes rather than it being their choice).

[WindUpMimita]

Yeah, this is disappointing.

I do understand that there will pretty much always need to be SOME level of changes and adjustments to fan designs in order to implement them in game for a variety of factors. I think that in this case, by changing the texture of the hair so much, it really isn't even the same design at all anymore. If they were unable to replicate a more accurate texture, they should have chosen something else to implement instead. Even the wording of "inspired by" feels a bit like a stretch because they missed the mark so much on the curls.

I'm sure they didn't mean for it to come off this way, but de-texturing a textured hair design feels pretty dismissive of nonwhite hairstyles as a whole, especially when that kind of hair isn't well represented in the game currently.

[E2404]

Commenting to say I 100% agree, they definitely could have done a lot better with this.
I was really looking forward to using this hair on a few characters of mine (mainly my black ones), and while I know it can be tricky to get a 3d model looking close to the original design this hair straight up looks almost nothing like it; these are less "curls" and more "flat and wet looking waves" than anything.

Not only that, but the previous entries that have been implemented into the game are far more accurate to their original designs than this one was (to the point that even on the patch page they went out of their way to call this hair "inspired" by the original design, which was not how other entries have been described/prefaced) so it feels even more egregious and disappointing that they dropped the ball here.

We have so many straight hairs in this game, to mess up on one that has a different texture - and seemingly know you've messed it up but still go ahead with it - says a lot.

[Minarisweet]

I'm not sure where else to write about this but I'm very disappointed in how the new hairstyle for 7.1 patch looks as seen on the patch notes released today.

The hairstyle in question looks like this:



Assuming that this is supposed to be the "Natural Curls" hairstyle, which is part of the winning entries for the 2023 hairstyle contest, this is what it's supposed to look like:



I'm very disappointed if this is what we're about to get in this game.
The hair looks nothing like how the artist had originally visualised — it looks more wavy than curly. I cannot begin to articulate how bad it is that we've wanted better natural/textured hair in this game only for the devs to butcher the artist's vision and "play it safe".

Please do better. We don't have enough hairstyles like this as it is, with the only two options available for black people specifically are a stereotypical afro and a poor attempt of locs. I'm hoping more people speak out about this as I know folks have been looking forward to the small number of entries for textured/natural hair that were selected as winning entries for the contest.

Glad this thread is popping off quickly

[cheruppi]

I dont know if ive ever posted in the forums yet but this is egregious enough to get me to say something.

Even in the best case, ignoring any possible internal bias the team had while creating it, it's still straight up disrespectful to not honor the winning hair + the artist at all.
"inspired by" does way too much heavy lifting when other entries in contests for weapons, furniture, hair, are overwhelmingly *accurate*.

For the one style that doesn't match at all, to be the single nice curly hair we could have gotten, is just disrespectful to the artist and the many players excited for it.
there's no other hair like it in the game :/ we just want curls.

[candidKlutz]

i don't necessarily hate the hairstyle they made, but it absolutely does not look anything like the hairstyle it was modeled after. "inspired by" does such a massive amount of lifting here. i genuinely couldnt even tell that it was supposed to be the same hairstyle until it was being posted on twitter. if they dont change this hairstyle, i hope they can at least make an entirely new one thats actually closer to the contest winner's design.

[Skaadenfroid]

Chiming in with some, this is the first time I'm posting on the forums

This is incredibly shameful to depict a winning contribution in this manner.

It reeks of either implicit bias or just half-hearted laziness, which is a shame because they did such a great job with every other winner's pieces.

Normally I would be a lot more supportive of the dev team and say they'll fix it in time but I think they have an obligation to go back and fix this one. Hopefully they can crunch something in with the FRU release because this really isn't it.