Rewards

Every time a player performs a positive Habit, or completes a Daily or To-do, the player earns gold and silver that can be used to buy rewards. Two kinds of rewards are available: in-game rewards (equipment for the player's avatar) and custom personal rewards.

Rewarding good performance is the best way to reinforce good habits, so go ahead, create plenty of Rewards and buy them liberally!

Item Store
The Item Store is unlocked after the player reaches level 2. Players can purchase weapons, armor, potions, and other special items by clicking on them.

Weapons increase experience gain. Armor can decrease your health loss or buff other stats. Potions can restore health after a hard hit.

Weapons and armor will enhance your scoring and help you survive when you are not doing well - you might find this a strong motivation to get them. Weapons and armor come in sets for each class. A player starts with basic gear and each purchase is replaced by a better item until all levels have been purchased. Each item of gear is more expensive than the earlier version, but also offers greater gain. Once you have purchased the top-level tier of equipment for your class, you receive the "Ultimate Gear" achievement and badge.

Special gear which can be bought from the Item Store is sometimes released for special events, such as Spring Fling and Winter Wonderland.

Creating Custom Rewards
Eventually, if you are doing well and earning gold, you will run out of things to buy. In HabitRPG, however, you can create your own personalized rewards. The positive reinforcement you can give yourself with your personal rewards is a very good way to stay motivated to do things. Making and buying these rewards is key to long-term enjoyment of HabitRPG.

You will have to find out what motivates you best. For example, it can be something you covet but would never buy or do ordinarily, such as a massage or (yet another) book. It can also be time off work, playtime during the day, or anything else that will motivate you to go and get things done. Some players also create custom rewards for surfing procrastination sites, making them either a reward or a gold penalty taken after the fact. Custom rewards are as diverse as the Habits, Dailies, and To-dos each player creates. If you're trying to come up with ideas and are stumped, you can also ask in the Tavern.

To create your own reward, simply type in what you want, like "Bag of Cheetos," and press the plus button. The default cost for rewards is 10 gold coins. To change the cost, press the pencil icon next to the specific reward. You can now change the reward by either raising or lowering the price (use decimals for silver, e.g. '.5' = 50 silver).

To make the reward truly your own, you can also add extra notes. You can, for example, note that Flaming Hot Cheetos feel like a better reward/motivator than regular Cheetos. You can also write about the specifics of your reward such as the size of the Cheetos bag. Again, all of this can be done by pressing the pencil icon.

Also consider adding emoji to the titles of your rewards. Pictures can add clarity and make the reward seem more fun. See the Markdown Cheat Sheet for other formatting tricks you can use in reward titles.

Tags can also be added by clicking the pencil icon. This is useful if you have a lot of rewards and need some sort of organization. Click the garbage can icon to delete a reward.

See also:  Sample Custom Rewards

Figuring Out Prices
It's important to make your reward costs reasonable. If they're too low, there's no incentive to work hard. But if they're too high, then they can seem out of reach and discourage you instead of motivating you.

Because HabitRPG is so customizable, there's a huge range in the amount of gold players earn per day. Users who earn more gold are not necessarily more productive, and users who earn less are not necessarily "lazy." Some people keep track of every single Daily task from making the bed in the morning to brushing teeth at night; others only have a few tasks which require the extra motivation or accountability HabitRPG provides. Rather than worrying about whether you're earning "enough" to afford the prices listed here, you should make the game work for you and change your prices accordingly.

When you're starting out, it might make more sense to think about how many days of work your reward should cost rather than how much gold. Then figure out how much gold you typically earn in a day and translate the prices accordingly.

For example:
 * Surf the web = 1/2 day
 * 1 TV episode = 1 full day
 * That new movie I really want to buy on DVD but it's so expensive = 2 weeks
 * Going to the park on Sunday = 1/2 day x 1 week (which is 3 1/2 days)

Some other questions to keep in mind when doing your calculations:
 * Will I get more motivation by saving all my gold for a big prize? Or by having lots of little ones? (Or both?)
 * If I'm a productive Habiteer and get all my tasks done every day, how long should it take to earn this reward? Do I want to also be able to buy little daily rewards along the way?
 * Is this a regular reward? If so, how often (again, assuming I do all my tasks) should I get it? (For example, a cookie every day? Spend every Saturday afternoon at the park?)
 * How much do I want to spend on game items versus custom rewards? (Sadly, you can't change the costs of in-game rewards, but if you want to have both then you can lower your custom reward prices a bit. Or if you think game items are just too tempting, you could raise your custom reward prices so you're forced to choose between them.)

Rearranging Custom Rewards
Habits, Dailies, Rewards, and To-Dos can be rearranged by dragging and dropping them in their new position, or by clicking the Push to Top button.

Upgrading Armour vs. Custom Rewards
Spending all your gold on armor can have an unexpected negative effect, especially as there is only a certain amount available, as highlighted by Tyler on the HabitRPG blog post, Don't forget about custom rewards. If this is a problem for you, you can always match in-game rewards with small but appropriate real life rewards, which may produce more long-term positive reinforcement.