Habitica offers an interesting game play setup designed to encourage users to be productive. It places most of the game decisions on the player, allowing them to dictate their own experience. This inherent customization can easily be taken further to design the experience that is right for you.
Creating Your Own Rules
The key to Habitica is to use it in a way that will make you the most productive. Look for what motivates you the most in Habitica; you can adapt the game mechanics somewhat to emphasize that motivation for yourself.
Many people use Self-Imposed Challenges, like refusing to buy health potions or increasing their price to add a sense of urgency or difficulty to the game. This same concept can easily be extended elsewhere.
Regenerating HP
Fix Character Values can be found in Settings > Site > Fix Character Values
Regenerating lost Health Points is a common question that new players have. They look to regain a set amount of HP every Cron, but Habitica does not run this way. What many people overlook is that the Fix Character Values option in the Settings menu can be used to manually do this. The individual player can decide that they want 'x' HP regenerated every Cron. Simply go into settings in the upper right corner, go to Site, Fix Character Values, and then increase your HP by your set amount.
You could also decide to only regenerate HP while you are not on a quest. This adds a feeling of legitimacy to the quests themselves. You are away fighting or searching for something, and then you come back home to rest and recharge.
At first it may feel like cheating, but it is more an alternative way to play Habitica. The HP regeneration can motivate players to take on harder tasks that they otherwise would be too afraid to go after.
Making Your Own Mana Potions
Advancing players sometimes wish they could use their excess gold to buy mana points. Since there is no mana potion offered through Habitica, it is left to the user to devise one. The individual player can decide that they want 'x' MP to cost a certain amount of gold, set up a Reward, and then manually add the MP with every purchase using the Fix Character Values option described above.
Upper level players lack a useful outlet for their gold, and buying MP can make the gold relevant to them again.
Swapping Health for Mana
A player who finds that they need more motivation to avoid bad Habits might use Fix Character Values to regularly reduce their health. If they would also like to have more mana, they can "buy" mana with health points. Decide on an appropriate exchange rate (perhaps 1 HP = 2 MP), and then after leveling up, use Fix Character Values to exchange as many points as you will find motivating.
There are unofficial names for players who do this. A Mage becomes a Bloodmage, a Warrior is a Berserker, a Healer is a Donor, and a Rogue is a Ninja. An advanced version of this with other related ideas is described in the Sub-Classes challenge in the ➕ Habitica Plus guild
Collection Quest Damage
Collection quests can sometimes feel mundane and lack that sense of excitement that boss quests do. A player could choose to take self-inflicted questing damage to encourage yourself to finish it quickly. Everyday that you are on a collection quest use Fix Character Values to reduce your health by a set amount (perhaps 3 HP), this mimics the fatigue that comes with the hardships of questing.
Boss Quest Damage
Boss quests can be considerably shortened by the use of the Warrior and Mage skills (Brutal Smash and Burst of Flames respectively). However, overuse of these skills can take some of the challenge out of mid- to low-level bosses when emptying your mana bar can sometimes kill a boss outright. Some groups and players choose to limit their skill use as follows:
- Only use a limited number of casts (1-3) of Brutal Smash or Burst of Flames per day.
- Only casting spells on Dailies you have actually completed that day.
- Avoiding the use of class boss-damaging spells at all if the boss has less than a certain amount of health.
Death Recovery
When circumstances arise where one person doesn't log in for a few days and then does so, killing the party instantly, some party members find it acceptable to use the Fix Character Values option to restore their lost level, gold, and equipment due to their deaths not being anything that they could avoid.
It is a little-known trick that a Healer can 'raise the dead' by healing the group before they log back in. Habitica applies the sum of damage and healing to the party member only when they update, so if you log in and discover you'll have killed the party, there's still a chance to save some or all of the members if you do it quickly.
Conclusion
Habitica is a unique experience and you should not be afraid to make it your own.