How Quests Work
Turn every task into a quest worth completing.
What Are Quests?
In MainQuest, a quest is any task you want to accomplish. Instead of a plain checkbox, quests have difficulty levels, optional objectives, deadlines, and real consequences.
Completing quests earns you XP (experience points) that level up your character. Abandoning or failing quests costs you HP (health points). This creates real stakes for your productivity.
Difficulty Levels
Every quest has a difficulty level that determines how much XP you earn on completion. Choose honestly — the system works best when difficulty matches actual effort.
Objectives (Subtasks)
Large quests can be broken down into objectives — subtasks you check off as you go, as a checklist inside the quest, giving you a sense of momentum before the quest itself is done. Checking a quest complete doesn't require every objective to be checked first — they're there to help you track progress, not to gate completion.
Note: which objectives you've checked isn't saved to your account on either platform. On web, the ticks reset when you close the quest; on mobile they're cached on your device but can be reset by a later sync.
Objectives are optional. Simple quests like "Go for a run" do not need them, but an Epic quest like "Launch my side project" benefits from having clear steps.
Deadlines & Consequences
You can set a deadline on any quest — optionally with an exact time, not just a date. It triggers a reminder push 2–24 hours before it falls due. Miss it and the quest simply sits overdue in your list — nothing is deducted on its own. A quest can also carry a scheduled date as well: it stays hidden from your active list until that day arrives, then surfaces on its own.
Abandon Penalty
HP is only lost when you quit a quest mid-focus-session — you started its timer, paused, and then chose to abandon rather than resume. That deliberate act costs a flat 10 HP; the quest itself survives and can be started again. Letting a deadline pass, leaving a quest unfinished (committed or not), or deleting a quest you never started costs nothing. If your HP drops to zero, your character dies and all gameplay is blocked until you are revived. See the HP, XP & Death guide for details.
Note: this Abandon action currently only exists in the mobile app's focus-session screen. The web app has no equivalent yet — closing out of a quest there costs nothing, on any quest, committed or not.
Recurring Quests
A non-daily quest can repeat on its own — Weekly (pick a day of the week), Monthly (pick a day of the month), or Yearly (pick a month and day). Complete the current occurrence and the due date rolls forward automatically — nothing piles up, nothing needs recreating by hand. It's the right tool for “Pay Rent” or “Weekly Review” — real obligations on a calendar, not a streak (that's what Habits are for).
The repeat cadence itself is a Pro feature. The quest stays free either way, and any recurring quest already running keeps running regardless of your plan.
Skill Linking
When creating a quest, you can link it to a skill. Hours reach the skill through focus sessions run on that quest — the session's full duration is credited to the linked skill's hour log. Checking a quest off without running its timer credits zero hours, so run the timer when the time matters.
Learn more about skills in the Skills guide.
XP Rewards & Daily Cap
XP earned from quests is determined by the quest's difficulty level, then the same modifiers below apply regardless of which platform you complete it on — the math runs on the server. Quest cards flag the age bonus and warn you when you're already at the daily cap; on web, the full modifier breakdown appears in the reward reveal after completion:
- Age-based bonus: a non-daily, non-recurring quest gains +15% XP for every day it's been open, capped at 2.0× after 7 days — applied before the difficulty multiplier.
- Clarity Buff: a 1.2x XP multiplier active for 4 hours after writing a Dawn Scroll.
- Whetstone: a Shop consumable adding +50% quest XP for 24 hours, and raising the daily cap to 250 while it lasts.
- Pact & pet bonuses: a high-rank Accountability Pact carries a permanent bonus of up to +15%, and an awake pet companion adds its own small buff.
- Fatigue penalty: when your character is ≥90% exhausted, XP is halved to 0.5x.
Quality rating is separate from all of this — see below. It never touches XP.
Quality Rating → Embercoin, Not XP
After completing a quest, rate the quality of your work 1–5 stars. A perfect 5-star rating grants a flat +10 Embercoin bonus, capped at 3 per day. Anything below 5 stars grants no bonus. Either way, your XP reward is exactly the same — the rating never changes it.
Daily XP Cap
You can earn a maximum of 100 XP per day. The day resets at 3 AM, not midnight. This accommodates late-night players and early-morning routines.
Completing a Quest
When you finish a quest, mark it as complete to claim your rewards. The flow is:
- Tap the quest to open it
- Mark it as complete
- Rate the quality of your work (optional)
- Receive your XP reward (adjusted by modifiers and daily cap)
- Check if you leveled up — leveling up fully restores your HP to 100
Changed your mind? Completions can be undone — an undo claws back exactly the XP that was paid and, on a recurring quest, rolls its due date back. The abandon penalty, by contrast, has no undo.
