Training and Fighting

Training and Fighting are the core loop of Masked City — get stronger at the Gym, then test that strength against other players.

Training

The Gym is where you train Speed, Power, Strength, and Intel. Each train costs 10 Energy and $50 and gives a permanent boost to the stat you pick. The $50 comes from your cash on hand first, then your bank, so you never need to withdraw to train. The reigning MCC Champion trains for free.

Train All (the button under each Train button) spends all the Energy you can afford on that one stat in a single go.

How Much You Gain

Every train works out the same way:

gain = (base gain × Momentum + Intel bonus) × boosts

• Base gain grows with your level: 0.20 + 0.0015 × level. That is 0.275 at level 50, 0.35 at level 100, and 0.50 at level 200.
• Momentum rewards training one stat in a row (below).
• Intel bonus is a flat amount added to every train of any stat (below).
• Boosts multiply the whole thing (below).

Each card on the Gym shows the exact gain of your next train. Tap its Boosted pill (or How it adds up when nothing is boosting you) to see every part of that number.

Momentum

Training the same stat back-to-back builds Momentum, a bonus on top of your base gain:

• Every train after the first adds about +0.3%.
• It is full at +30% after 100 trains in a row on the same stat, and stays there as long as you keep going.
• Training a different stat resets it to zero. The Gym asks you to confirm before you break a streak, so you never lose one by a misclick.
• A Sidekick with the Drill Sergeant capstone builds Momentum twice as fast: full in about 50 trains.

The Momentum bar across the top of the Gym shows your current streak and how close it is to full. If you are building one stat, stay on it.

The Intel Bonus and the Intel Cap

Intel makes every train better, not just Intel trains. It adds a flat amount to each train of any stat:

• +0.015 per 100 Intel up to 1,000 Intel (+0.15 at 1,000).
• Half that rate from 1,000 to 2,500, and a quarter of it from 2,500 to 5,000.

You can train Intel up to 1,000. A Sidekick's Tutor node raises that cap by 100 per rank (up to 1,500). The weekly Intel bonus from the Watchtower is on top of what you trained and never counts against the cap. See Intel for everything else Intel does.

Gym Boosts

These all multiply your gains, and they stack with each other:

Fighting

Combat costs 5 Energy per attack. You can only attack players within a certain level range of you (see below), and a fight lasts up to 200 turns — if neither side is knocked out by then, it ends in a draw. Losing drops your health to 0, sending you to the Hospital until you recover. While you're knocked out you can't fight or be fought, work the Streets, walk the map in Explore, run the Gauntlet, take on the Arena or a Boss, or go up to the Penthouse. You can still train at the Gym. Heal at the Hospital to get back to it.

Each fight plays out on the fight stage right after you attack, with Skip and 2× buttons, and both fighters can watch it again from the battle log for 7 days. Don't want it? Turn Fight replays off in Settings → Gameplay and you'll only see the written log.

What Your Stats Actually Do

Three stats decide the outcome of a fight:

• Strength — your defense. Reduces incoming damage, and also factors into your own damage output alongside Power.
• Power — your offense. The bigger factor in how hard you hit.
• Speed — who acts first each turn. Higher Speed means more of your hits land before the opponent's.

Equipped Weapons add a flat bonus to your damage roll. Equipped Armor adds a flat bonus to your defense roll. Relics add to Speed plus either Attack or Defense, depending on the relic (see Relics).

Your Rank Bonus — the flat stat bonus your Reputation rank earns you, shown on your Lair character sheet — only reaches combat through an equipped Relic. No Relic equipped means no Rank Bonus applied, full stop, no matter what your character sheet shows. Equip any Relic to actually receive it.

Effective Stats

Raw stat numbers aren't used directly in combat — they're converted to "effective" stats first, and the conversion gets worse the higher you go:

• The first 500 points of any stat count in full.
• Every point beyond 500 only counts for 80% of its value.

Formula: effective = 500 + (raw − 500) × 0.8 once raw is over 500 (otherwise effective = raw).

Combat Formulas

Each turn, both sides roll a random value inside a range built from their effective stats:

"Applicable" means: you have a Relic equipped, AND that Relic's bonus targets that particular roll. A single Relic never boosts both Damage and Defense at once — Speed always gets it, plus either Damage or Defense depending on the relic (Sentry to Zenith → Defense, Spark to Onslaught → Damage). With no Relic equipped, none of these three rolls get a bonus at all.

Whoever rolls the higher Speed value acts first that turn. Their Damage roll minus the opponent's Defense roll is the damage dealt — if Defense comes out ahead, the hit does nothing that turn.

Worked example — a fighter with 4,000 Strength, 5,000 Power, 2,000 Speed, and no gear:

• Effective Strength: 3,300 · Effective Power: 4,100 · Effective Speed: 1,700
• Damage range: 2,600–3,900
• Defense range: 1,100–1,650
• Speed range: 425–1,700

Because Strength feeds both your damage and your defense, and armor is otherwise capped by what's available in the shop, raising Strength tends to go further than stacking Power alone once you're past the early game.

Who You Can Attack

Your attack range is normally your level ± 200, but the lower bound is tightened at low levels so newer players aren't exposed to the full 200-level spread right away:

On top of that, no one can ever attack more than 200 levels above themselves.

The 10 ranks above you: whatever their level, you can always attack any of the 10 players directly above you on the fight rank ladder. It only works upward, and it never uses a Fake ID. Beat one of them and you swap ranks, which brings the next players above into reach.

Cash & Experience

• Cash: winning steals half of the loser's on-hand cash — bank balances are never at risk. Keep the bulk of your money banked.
• Base EXP: scales with the loser's level, and gets a bonus for punching up (attacking someone higher level than you) or a penalty for punching down. A PvP win (attacking or defending) pays 50% more than the same fight's base, because it's the only fight where losing costs you.
• Target win rate matters: attacking someone with a very low win rate cuts your EXP (down to -60% below a 10% win rate); attacking someone with a high win rate boosts it (up to +60% above 90%).
• Repeat-target tax: fighting the same player over and over in one reset period pays less each time, whoever attacks — full EXP for the first 3 fights between you, then -20%, -40%, -60%, and -80% from the 7th onward. It applies to the winner's EXP, so a defender who keeps beating the same attacker is taxed too.
• Intel bonus: your Intel stat adds a percentage bonus to combat EXP on top of everything else — another reason Intel is worth training early (see Intel).
• Alliance EXP: beating someone in a different Alliance also earns your Alliance a small amount of EXP, more if they outlevel you.
• Reputation: winning shifts your Reputation toward Hero or Villain based on your current alignment — bigger shifts against high-Reputation targets, diminishing as their Reputation climbs (see Reputation).
• District Control: whichever side wins the fight gets a bonus if their alignment currently controls the relevant district — Downtown adds +20% to the cash taken, and the Heights adds +10% to the EXP gained (see The Watch Tower).

Trading Points for Stats

Combat also lets you convert Points directly into permanent stat gains, no Energy or Cash involved. Each exchange spends 1 Point for +2 to Speed, Power, or Strength — your choice each time. Every account gets 50 exchanges for life. They don't reset, so spend them on the stat you're building.

Before You Fight

• Keep most of your cash in the bank — losing a fight only risks what you're carrying on hand.
• Check a target's win rate before attacking — it swings your EXP more than most people expect.
• Don't lean on the same target too many times in one reset — the repeat-target tax adds up fast.
• Training one stat in a row is the main long-term way to get stronger in combat — see Momentum above.

See the Game Rules for what counts as fair play around combat and account interactions.