Reign of the Hunters (200+)

Chapter 242

Ye Ci was forced to release her AOE skills like Rain of Arrows and Multi Arrows in such a situation. It was the only effective countermeasure she had against the small spiders. In her bid to reduce the damage dealt to her Elite Robots, Ye Ci expended a large amount of her Stamina. This meant that she would run out of Stamina within 15 minutes, and would be forced to take a rest.

Penalties against players from hostile continents were indeed high before the patch was introduced into the game.

With the current stage of the game meant as a period for players to muster their strength, the developers have placed measures to ensure deter players from invading an opposing continent. This included a high penalty that was imposed on players who was on a foreign hostile continent. Even with a way to deal with the spiders, Ye Ci's progress was very slow as she had to take frequent breaks. When she received a message from Fleeting Time, Ye Ci was replenishing her stamina on the ground.

"How are you doing? Have you taken out the spiders yet?"

"Nope. The little ones are very obnoxious with their self destruct. I've expended a lot of Stamina by casting AOE skills to keep them in check." said Ye Ci as she took a sip of water. Even if she was to replenish her Stamina, Ye Ci's character was affected by Fatigue after the long hours of battle.

"Are you starting to have a high Fatigue value?" guessed Fleeting Time when he heard a groan from Ye Ci.

"Yup." Ye Ci was straightforward with her answer. The Fatigue value was a measure imposed by the developers on the character of a player in-game, and had nothing to do with the player themselves in real life. As a game with servers that were operational 24 hours a day, there would always be overly enthusiastic players who stayed logged into the game to endlessly grind for gears and experience. This could be said to be unfair to the vast majority of Fate's player base. This was why the Fatigue system was introduced and was imposed on players who spent long moments in dungeons or activities like leveling up and crafting items or consumables. Continued and prolonged activities would generate Fatigue for a character, and unlike Stamina that could be replenished by consuming food in-game, players could only recover from being affected by Fatigue by logging off.

Of course, if nutrient packs were attached to a player's gaming cabin, the rising of Fatigue levels could be slowed down.

Even if it was deemed unfair to certain players, one must understand the world was never fair, and only relative fairness could be imposed in the game.

"How many Fatigue points do you have now?"

"28." replied Ye Ci after stealing a glance at her Fatigue level.

"That's a rather high number." Fleeting Time furrowed his eyebrows.

The maximum points of Fatigue that could be accumulated by players in Fate was set at 100 points. When a player had an accumulated 30 points of Fatigue, the player would have all their stats reduced by 5. A player afflicted by 50 points of Fatigue would face a penalty of -15 on all stats. When the accumulated Fatigue of a player was as high as 70 points, a penalty of -50 on all stats would be imposed on a player. By then, the player would have reduced movement speed and hit rate. The success rate of item crafting would also be drastically reduced. Players would usually log out of the game when their accumulated Fatigue points were at 30.

If a player managed to accumulate more than 70 Fatigue points, the player's character would slowly die of exhaustion. This was the same problem that was encountered by Ye Ci during her fight with Werebeast Shaman Buru. Things would play out more differently if her Fatigue level was lower at the beginning of the fight.

"It's alright. I'm fighting against spiders anyways. I've been the one who is dishing out all the AOE attacks, of course I'll have a higher Fatigue level. When I'm done with the spiders, I'll let Ol' Four and the robots take over the fighting, and my Fatigue level will not be increasing too much by then." Ye Ci knew that her high Fatigue level would affect the dungeon exploration process. With the duo now separated, things could go very bad if she was forced to take a break due to high levels of Fatigue.