In Final Fantaxy XIV, the weekly server reset happens on Tuesdays. While the game doesn't provide a set of tasks each week to advance a character's power progression, the Challenge Log opens up at level 15. Doing certain challenges gets a player experience, with all the challenges providing some sort of monetary reward in the many currencies making up the Eorzean economy. I didn't realize just how the start of my week is wrapped around the Challenge Log.
I begin each day after logging in by checking my retainers. A fairly passive source of income, retainers bring in a really good haul of materials and gil, which is why I am up to 8. Because I have 8, I naturally complete two challenges on Wednesdays.
- Have a retainer complete 10 ventures. Reward: 1000 gil
- Have a retainer complete 15 exploration ventures. Reward: 4000 gil
That's right. I get money for trying to make money. See where the system can get silly?
After taking care of my retainers, I check my market orders and restock my shelves. I sell both crafted and gathered goods. On Tuesdays I make a list and try to stock up on items I'm low on stock of. Usually I try to get the task out of the way on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
I'm pretty good on keeping ingredients in stock, so I'll do my crafting after restocking my market orders on Tuesdays. I had a slow week this week and only had to make a stack of food for my own adventuring and one stack for sale. One of the items had a crafted ingredient, so I wound up crafting 24 items, all at high-quality. Doing so completed another challenge.
- Craft 20 high-quality items. Reward: 2000 gil
If sales had been better, I would have crafted a little more and completed another challenge worth another 1000 gil. But I had places to go and games to play.
A new edition to my routine is a visit to my island sanctuary. Since the reset is on Tuesday, I travel out and see how I did selling my handicrafts. Because I don't check every day, opening up my workshop not only delivers the seacowries I earned the week before, but I complete one of the two challenges. I then run up and talk to the mammets looking after my crops and animals and complete another challenge.
On Wednesdays I come back to the island and set up the agenda for my workshop so I can collect the benefits the following week. Sometimes I do need to do a little gathering to make sure the workshop is adequately stocked. But for doing things I would do anyway, I complete two more challenges.
- Collect 100 materials in your island sanctuary: 1000 seacowries
- Ship 20 isleworks handicrafts: 1000 seacowries
This is a good spot to point out that for every 5 challenges completed, I complete a completion challenge. The 5 challenges are:
- Complete 5 unique challenges. Reward: 10,000 gil
- Complete 10 unique challenges. Reward: 10,000 gil
- Complete 15 unique challenges. Reward: 10,000 gil
- Complete 20 unique challenges. Reward: 10,000 gil
- Complete 30 unique challenges. Reward: 15,000 gil
After taking care of my island, I run off to play at the Manderville Gold Saucer. FFXIV's casino/game room is one of my favorite places in the game. On Tuesdays I usually try to arrive right before one of the times a GATE occurs. GATEs consist of the bigger games like the jumping puzzles and airplane-on-rails game and appear every 20 minutes. I can complete most of the games pretty easily at this point.
After doing the GATE, I run off to play Triple Triad. I'll play until I win 10 times. Doing so kills time until the start of the next GATE. After participating in the second GATE, I then will play one of the smaller games located around the facility. The Gold Saucer has games of strength and the little crane game that picks up prizes, but I prefer the basketball toss. I then play the Mini-Cactpot. I love that game and play every day.
In addition to having a bit of fun, I completed four challenges.
- Triple Triad, 10 games played. Reward: 5000 MGP
- Triple Triad, 10 games won. Reward: 8000 MGP
- Complete 3 mini-games. Reward: 1000 MGP
- Earn 100 MGP from mini-games. Reward: 1500 MGP
On Wednesday I came back to race chocobos. I recently took up the hobby and am training and racing my second racing chocobo. I figure I can do 3 races between GATEs. Sometimes I even win. Last night I won one out of the three races. I also completed one of the two GATEs I participated in. I completed three additional Gold Saucer challenges last night.
- Enter 3 chocobo races. Reward: 5000 MGP
- Win a chocobo race. Reward: 5000 MGP
- Complete 3 GATEs. Reward: 8000 MGP
People wonder how I manage to amass so much MGP. The 33,500 in challenges I make on Tuesdays and Wednesdays is just part of the secret. I'll have to write a post some day.
After my daily visit to the Gold Saucer, I'll spend time gathering. Over the course of a week I usually spend two hours travelling around to restock my shelves. Ideally I finish on Tuesday or Wednesday. I completed my list on Tuesday this week, but didn't plan ahead for decorating my cottage so I'll have to do some more later this week. But I did complete two more challenges.
- Successfully gather items of comparable level to your own 100 times. Reward: 1000 gil
- Successfully trigger the Gatherer's Boon effect while gathering items of comparable level to your own 30 times. Reward: 2000 gil
I looked back and saw I only completed 14 challenges. So I reached into my inventory and pulled out 5 fish to desynthesize, earning myself another 10,000 gil.
- Successfully desynthesize 5 items. Reward: 2000 gil
See how the Challenge Log system can become addictive? My grand total for two days was:
- 42,000 gil
- 33,500 MGP
- 2,000 seacowries
My list is rather carebear specific. But the developers put in a long list of challenges for those who like combat, including PvP. Those who hate crafting and gathering never have to touch those activities to take advantage of the Challenge Log.
After playing FFXIV for almost 3 1/2 years I don't really need the gil anymore. But I always want more MGP in case the next patch includes new Gold Saucer prizes. The new rewards obtainable from the Island Sanctuary system help pay for automating my island. Looking back, though, I was amazed at how much this little weekly system influenced the way I play FFXIV.
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