The challenge log in FFXIV is a collection of tasks to complete each week (resetting on Tuesdays) that reward you with extra gil, experience, and other resources. These challenges cover a wide variety of activities you can do in game, so there should be something for everyone.
You can certainly grind them out in a short period of time, but they’re very easy to complete over the course of the week just by doing your daily tasks like roulettes, beast tribes, and retainer ventures. This is the most efficient way to do it if you are planning on playing most days anyway.
In this post I’ll break down what you can get from the challenge log, how to unlock it, and which activities are included in the weekly tasks.
How to Unlock the Challenge Log
To get started with the challenge log you’ll need to unlock it by completing the quest ‘Rising to the Challenge‘ in Limsa Lominsa given to you from I’tolwann in the Drowning Wench. You’ll pass by her in the Main Scenario Quests after you unlock airship travel and are asked to go speak with Baderon, the proprietor of the Drowning Wench. I recommend picking this up immediately as it’s a very short sidequest that doesn’t even require you to leave Limsa.
If you’ve already done your first dungeon (Sastasha) but don’t have the challenge log unlocked (you can check under Logs > Challenge Log) then go do that sidequest as soon as you get a moment. When I started the game I actually didn’t even know this existed until I was in the level 20s or so. Whoops.
Having the challenge log unlocked will benefit you passively even if you don’t open it or think about it, since some of the tasks in there are things you’ll probably be doing anyway, like dungeons. That’s why picking it up right away is so good, especially for new players who are still low level.
Challenge Log Categories
There are 12 categories in total, but you’ll only have a category unlocked once you unlock the relevant content. For example, you won’t see the Gold Saucer tab until you’ve unlocked the Gold Saucer. Same goes for Treasure Hunt, Eureka, etc.
Battles – complete dungeons, guildhests, or wondrous tails. Earn gil and experience for your combat jobs and chocobo companion.
PvP – participate or win in different PvP modes to earn bonus wolf marks.
FATE – complete a number of FATEs with the highest participation rating to receive combat exp and gil.
Levequests – complete levequests for gil and experience.
Crafting & Gathering – craft, gather, fish, and desynthesize items, and complete custom deliveries to earn gil and exp for your crafters, gatherers, and fisher.
Treasure Hunt – obtain maps, open treasure coffers, and delve into treasure dungeons to earn some bonus gil.
Beast Tribes – complete beast tribe quests for bonus gil.
Grand Company – turn in items for supply and provisioning missions and lead your squadron through command missions to earn extra company seals.
Retainers – send your retainers on ventures and get gil rewards.
Gold Saucer – participate or win a variety of Gold Saucer related games and events for a lot of extra MGP. This is a staple if you’re trying to farm MGP.
Eureka – defeat specific elemental or monster-type enemies in Eureka zones to earn bonus elemental exp (Eureka level).
Complete – complete a number of unique challenges in other categories for large gil rewards.
Challenge Log Rewards
Gil
By far, the most common reward in the log is gil, available in almost all categories. In theory you can earn 108,000 gil from weekly challenge log rewards alone, but it’s unlikely you’ll get them all since some of them are just not worth the time if you weren’t planning on doing those activities anyway.
The biggest chunk of gil comes from the ‘Complete’ section, which means completing unique challenges in the log from other sections. It’s really easy to earn a lot of this gil just by doing a little bit from several categories.
For example, let’s say you do 5 duty roulette dungeons in a week (commending someone each time). You also complete 5 FATEs and 2 beast tribes’ daily quests, some of which you can do while in queue for those duties.
Those activities are enough to earn 6,000 gil from challenges, but on top of that you earned another 10,000 gil from the completion category, just by mixing up your activities. Clearly, if you have just a bit of variety in your playtime each week you can earn consistent gil with little effort. You can earn up to 55,000 gil from the completion category. I usually earn 20,000 or 30,000 of that without specifically fixating on it as a primary goal.
Experience
Where the challenge log really shines is helping you level up your jobs, as the experience-giving challenges will boost you by 5 to 15 percent of the required exp to reach the next level. This varies by challenge, so some are bigger payouts than others.
Remember that the experience will be awarded to the job you’re currently playing when the challenge is completed. If you give your fifth commendation of the week while on a max level job, the challenge is ticked as complete and you lose that potential exp, so be mindful after reset if you want to earn as much exp as possible.
The categories of interest for earning exp on your combat jobs are Battles, FATE, or Levequests. Levequests for combat jobs are only available in ARR zones, and personally I would rather use these challenges to level crafters or gatherers.
A special note here is for yourchocobo companion who can gain a nice chunk of experience from two challenges found in the Battles category where you defeat enemies that are within 10 levels of your combat job’s level while having your chocobo companion summoned.
For crafters and gatherers you’ll want to complete challenges from the Levequests or Crafting & Gathering sections. If you’re trying to get the ‘Just Leave It to Me’ challenge to level up a specific job, you may want to do some other leve plate levequests for a different type of job first.
For example, if you’re trying to get the experience bonus on a crafter, you can first use a gatherer to complete Benevolence, Candor, and Piety leves, then switch to your desired crafting job and complete leves with Constancy and Charity leve plates to finish off the challenge.
Finally, if you’re working on boosting your elemental level in Eureka, that’s obviously the tab you’ll look at to track your progress for the week. This experience only affects your elemental level, so it only levels you up in Eureka, and it doesn’t matter which job you complete the challenges on.
Other Currencies
There are a few other currencies you can get from the challenge log. These are wolf marks from PvP challenges, MGP from the Gold Saucer challenges, and company seals from the Grand Company challenges. If you’re trying to buy some PvP glamour gear or if you haven’t finished ranking up with your Grand Company, check out these sections for a boost towards those goals.
If you’ve got your eye on an expensive mount in the Gold Saucer, the challenges in this section can really go a long way in earning MGP. Check out this post if you’re looking for more tips on efficient MGP farming.
Conclusion
The challenge log is a great help to me when I’m levelling alt jobs, or when I log in but don’t quite know exactly what I want to work on. I just open it up and see if any activities sound like fun at that moment. The game is handing you so much free experience, gil, and other resources just for doing pretty simple tasks. If you’re hurting for gil or trying to level another job then definitely check out your challenge log progress so far for the week.
Which challenges do you make sure to complete regularly? Let me know down in the comments.
