Cheating

Art by Draayder"Cheating" in Habitica is a matter of opinion and circumstance. One person may feel it's cheating to list things like getting out of bed and brushing teeth, while another person may need those Dailies for motivation or reminders. One person might have a Daily for an hour of study, while another might have a Daily for any studying at all. And one person might prefer to keep doing Dailies while sick, but another might pause damage at the first sniffle.
That's all fine. Habitica is here to help players learn good habits (and unlearn bad ones), not to stress them out and make them feel guilty. The right way to play is the way that is the most productive and effective for you.
To that end, "problematic cheating" would be any dishonest play by which a player avoids being productive (possibly rewarding them as though they had been).
== Cheating Yourself ==
Art by CitrineSun Habitica is not a traditional game. There are no high scores. You are playing against yourself, against the version of you who you don't want to be. Therefore, the following methods of problem-cheating only hurt your own efforts to improve. 
* Using Fix Character Values to give yourself extra levels, mana, or gold.
* Clicking things you didn't do.
* Giving yourself Habits like "breathing" (here, "breathing" refers to the physiological process, not to meditation or therapeutic breathing techniques).
* Setting a task Difficulty to "Hard" (making it worth more gold and Experience Points) even when it's easy for you to do.
* Greying Dailies out to avoid receiving damage you deserve.
* Doing a custom Reward without paying the gold.
* Moving your Cron around frequently to save your streaks or earn/maintain a Perfect Day buff.
== Motivations for Cheating ==
=== Wanting to Get to a High Level ===
Alternative: Take the time to earn it yourself and reap the true benefit of Habitica: becoming the person you want to be in real life. Also note that, since Fix Character Values exists, attaining a high level in a short period of time does not itself mean anything and will not impress anyone. Additionally, you'll miss out on valuable tutorials if you instantly level past them.
=== Avoiding Character Death ===
Alternatives:
* If you are near leveling up, look for any Dailies, To Do's, or good Habits you can complete easily. When you level, you will regain health.
* Take a look at the Data Display Tool to see what Dailies will do the most damage and focus on those.
* If you are in a party with a Healer, ask for healing.
* Other classes can use skills to decrease the damage they take, e.g. by buffing CON or increasing the task value of uncompleted Dailies.
* Use a Health Potion. If you cannot afford one, consider selling your excess Eggs, Hatching Potions, or Food to get enough gold.
* Warn the others in your party: They may be able to gain enough health to protect themselves from your damage.
* Add an "indulgence" to your list of Rewards: A pre-determined amount of gold you can pay to set a task to "not required" for today. Don't forget to fix the required days tomorrow!
=== Burned out, no Motivation to do Dailies ===
Alternatives:
* Reduce your number of Dailies, perhaps greying some out or moving them to Habits.
* Use a Fortify Potion if your tasks have gone red. This will return them to yellow, making them less damaging (and less threatening looking). You can get a similar effect by deleting and remaking tasks, but you will lose your task history.
* Take a look at the Burnout article for additional advice.
== Picking Yourself Up After Cheating ==
If you have been cheating and have decided to stop doing so, that's great. You do not necessarily have to do anything else! But if it would be more motivating to you, you can use Fix Character Values to remove the gold and levels you gained, or even look at options for starting over. The temptation might always remain, but you will pride yourself for not only improving the habits that you strive to perfect (or eradicating the ones you don't) but also by making strides to boosting your integrity.
== Cheating At Challenges ==
Since many Challenges are competitions, checking off things you have not done in a Challenge is actually cheating against other people. Many challenge creators look at their challenge data to weed out obvious cheaters.
If you are joining a Challenge to cheat in an attempt to get free gems, remember, they do not provide anything that isn't cosmetic (backgrounds, hair colors) or obtainable by other means (partying with someone who is providing quest scrolls). You can also get Gems by contributing to Habitica, and some guilds may have smaller Challenges you can complete honestly.
== Not Paying for Custom Rewards ==
It can often be difficult to motivate yourself to spend hard earned gold on real-life rewards, and while not every reward can (or should) be tied to Habitica, it is crucial to remain honest with yourself about your own plan. If you find that it is taking far too much effort to redeem a reward, consider gradually lowering the cost until it seems right for you. 
If you are just starting out, you could start by making the reward inexpensive, perhaps something like 1 gold for 30 minutes, so it's barely a decision to pay it. Then use it a lot, until "before I start gaming, I pay some gold" comes naturally. You could even make a Habit or Daily task out of it.
==Don't Give Up!==
Remember that there is a friendly community to cheer you on and friends to help with your motivation! Don't just give in to cheating; take a moment and relax. A potential solution is to take a short break from using Habitica and then go back, refresh your lists, possibly reset your account, and take another go! You may also be more motivated by joining a Party. You can invite your friends to start a party with you! Don't wait until mild cheating develops into severe cheating.
Ultimately, the magic of Habitica stems from the rewarding feeling that comes with checking off a task, habit or daily. If you illegitimately reward yourself with in-game rewards, you are only robbing yourself of the powerful motivation that you can get with honest play.
nl:Vals spelen
fr:Tricher
pt-br:Cheating
ja:チート
zh:作弊
ru:Читерство
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Category:Methodologies
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