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

[Goyan-Tanuki]

+1 Yeah this ain't it, please try again with it. You owe it to all your fans who want this hairstyle textured properly.

[dovalore]

woa, i didn't even realise that this was based off that entry until someone pointed it out to me
hopefully they'll change it to look way more like the concept, i know seeing that entry win made a lot of people happy because their own hair is similar to it, so it would be good if the in game model was different from what we were shown in the patch notes

[Celmar]

I was actually really hoping this one would be brought to the game but the inworld model is unfortunately truely lacking against what it could be given the actual hairstyle.

[AnataArcane]

First time posting here, just wanted to also show my support for this thread. I was really looking forward to this one and yeah, I had no idea it was even based on that entry.

[Glyphs]

Another agreement. I also had to go through all the Hairstyle Design Contest winners when I saw this, because it felt like it had to be a different style, right? But no, this is the only one with any resemblance to the new hairstyle.

The "A new hairstyle inspired by a FFXIV Hairstyle Design Contest" wording, when previous winners have used the phrasing "A winning entry from the FFXIV Hairstyle Design Contest" is then also incredibly damning, and shows some self awareness.

This would be disappointing for any entry, but it seems that the development team does not understand the gravity that this particular hairstyle holds, as a rare and eagerly anticipated textured hairstyle. Even taking the "inspired by" as "maybe they'll release a more faithful version later on" is a bit disheartening, to see that a style with such importance did not take precedent. It truly seems that the team did not understand the relevance of what they were working with, and the principle of that is the most disappointing part here.

[vanitasunverse]

it definitely misses the curly-ness from the winning entry, it looks like a sopping wet mop now compared to the puffy rounder bits the art has
parts of it hang down too much, i think fluffing it up a bit wouldn't hurt. i hope the devs can revision a bit and adjust it to look better, fuller and more like the original art, cause clearly this wasn't the intent of the artist of the winning entry

[Rudje]

I have to agree with the people saying it doesn't really qualify for "inspired by"--I thought a runner-up had been put in because of how completely unrecognizable it was. There's no resemblance between the new hairstyle and the entry besides length.

It really needs to be fixed. This is an insult to the entry's artist as well as the parts of the playerbase that have been wanting hair textures that aren't straight/wavy.

[thepurpletigress]

Creative Studio III do better. Even "inspired by" is so much of a stretch. It looks nothing like the winning hairstyle. This is a big disappointment.

[LBombe]

What a mess.

The original artist deserved better.

The original artist addressed an issue that the dev team failed to address for years with their design... and the dev team still managed to fail the community somehow.

[DynnDiablos]

I guess I'm just happy as a female hrothgar I will have more than 4 come next week.