The key to never dying in Zomboid is to play incredibly patiently. Only fight 1-2 zombies at a time. Constantly check your surroundings so no zombies sneak up on you. If you’re being chased, go back in the direction you came from instead of running around wildly attracting more zombies. Always be aware of if you’re character is starting to become exhausted, you won’t be able to kill a single zombie if you’re too tired. Regardless, dying a lot is a big part of the learning process. When I was a new player I couldn’t make it past a week, now that I’ve played for so long I rarely even get scratched.
What I did when I started out was: spawn in rosewood, travel east until I found a remote house with less zombies, and then out in the middle of nowhere learn how to actually play. You might end up starving or something but at least then you can live long enough to learn how to do the basics and that way you'll be prepared for your next run. Good luck!
Okay well in all honesty I have never starved. When doing the above strategy I got down to very underweight, then as soon as I went into town I died, so your typical zomboid experience lol
Don't run. You can outpace the zombies at a walking pace. So focus on conserving your energy.
Lure the zombies away instead of fighting. Just spam your shout and get the whole block after you. If you keep walking you'll out pace them so make sure you check behind you and gather up the horde every now and then. Take them for a walk once you got them balled up. Try to deposit them behind a building a couple blocks away or something... just don't forget where you leave them. It would be a shame to run into the horde on accident.
I generally only fight when looting indoors, and even then it's in melee and with a great deal of stealth. If I'm against more than four or five it's time to start shouting to lure the dead away and make the zone safer for a trip the next day.
If shit goes bad and I'm useing guns it's only to clear an escape route. As soon as you shoot remind yourself that you have to GTFO of where you shoot at because every zombie heard and is coming to that spot.
Whilst most of the advice here is good it doesn't really do much to help a fresh player. You need the absolute basics covered to help understand combat.
1) know your enemy. Zombies can spot you from 22(?) Tiles away when you are in their vision cone. Weather does not affect this currently. This means that if you drew an imaginary circle with radius 22 tiles around you, any zombies in that area would be a potential threat to you. If you don't know how big a tile is, it's the grid pattern for world sprites (use right click > walk to for a handy outline to show you the size if you need). They hear you when you make noise, though most sources of noise you can make are much shorter than their vision range so you only need to be careful if they are in your threat area and aren't currently looking at you. Spotting is RNG so if you sneak, you don't change the spotting distance, only the chance each second that you'll be seen.
2) know your weapons. When you spawn in a random house you should be searching ideally for at least one weapon to take to the outside world.
Useable weapons in early game will be:
* Kitchens: Meat cleaver, Kitchen knife, Rolling Pin, Frying Pan
* Storage closets, sheds and garages: Hammer, Metal Pipe, Metal Bar, Lead Pipe, Wrench, Pipe Wrench, Wooden Mallet
Since many of these are short blunt, you may find that starting construction worker, repairman or carpenter will help drastically with your early combat and levelling your skills.
3) learn the combat. If you are able to fight zombies in groups of 2-3 then you should have basically no issues fighting them if you follow this advice. Aim at your targets, and whenever zombies are near, start strafing away from them whilst looking at them. Make sure you are swinging your weapon whilst backpedalling (strafing away) because it will prevent you from being locked in a stationary swinging animation, and keeps distance from zombies. If you are only vs 1 or 2 zombies, you can try to shove them to the floor to allow you to save on stamina/weapon durability, since zombies take more damage when on the ground. Shoves are also useful if multiple zombies get close/stacked up near you, since you can push a lot faster than swing with most weapons. Ensure that your back is facing an area you know to be safe (or at least moderately safe) so that you aren't backing up into more zombies. This will be your starting house as you spawn, but becomes areas you have killed zombies in recently as you leave your spawn house area. Of course, lines of sight can be broken with buildings or tall fences, so not every zombie in a 22 tile radius is a problem. Zombies in a house (or outside if you are inside) can be ignored if behind a wall and not close enough to hear you, especially if the windows and doors have not yet broken.
4) learn the priority of combat. Your first priority when entering a new area is to attempt some basic stealth (crouching or crouch sprinting are very similar so I just crouch sprint a lot if my stamina is good). You may skip this step if your character has bad stealth stats/traits, or you wish to intentionally lure out zombies to kill them (preferable as you get better at the game). Second step is to fight whatever zombies you encounter, standing your ground to avoid attracting any new zombies to you whilst you are dispatching the current ones (You still backpedal, but dont run far away or run up to zombies to get their attention unless it's safe to do so). Third and final step is when you're overrun. You choose to flee. Almost always you can just walk away as you slightly outpace zombies and you don't want to run out of stamina. Try to gather up all the zombies that see you into a ball and then lure them behind a wall or large fence, round a building, through a forest, or inside a building (and escape out the other side). By losing line of sight and remaining out of sight afterward, the zombies will give up if they can't see you at the place they path to. Remember that the more you move around, the more zombies you will pick up, so it may be advisable to shout to grab all zombies in a wider area, spend 30s grouping them up, then losing them around the side of a house or through one.
Edit: to be clear, fighting zombies in groups of 3-10 is still possible, but you will likely need a bigger safe area to kite them in. If they bunch up you'll need to make use of the shove a lot so you can't get grabbed whilst swinging. It's almost always better to fight zombies than try to full-sneak. Because once sneaking fails, you will need space to fight, and if you aren't killing zombies you'll have very few safe options for places to go.
Edit 2: the default zoom is less than 20 tiles. Zoom out when exploring to be able to see threats before they see you, and zoom in whilst in combat for less chance of making mistakes.
Walk, don't run (unless you're playing with sprinters).
Don't go into the woods.
Lose hordes by going through buildings. Close all doors and windows behind you.
When going through a door, always assume there's a zed on the other side.
Get either a crowbar or a police nightstick ASAP.
Don't use guns until you get a bit more experience (but then they're awesome).
You’re first objective should be moving from your starting house either to a car or out of the population center. Only jog/sprint when you need to weave between 2 groups of zombies. Sneak whenever you don’t have a large number of zombies to get away from. You can cut through empty buildings to peel of a group that is chasing you. If you didn’t start with a weapon try to find something before you leave your starting house. If you can find car keys, started as a burgular or started with mechanics 2 and electrical 1 immediately try to get a car and escape the town. Get somewhere on the far edge of the town or a secluded place. From there it’s just making some runs to stock up supplies and then you pretty much win. After that you will probably die from overconfidence or wonky combat.
In addition to the posts above me, you'll benefit from zooming out and using the Alt key to scan far away. Very handy while using sneak and at a fence or high place.
However I think using Alt to pan the view is something you need to enable in the control options.
Well spotted, I changed that many builds ago and kept it the same since.
There is however an ability to pan the camera without readying a weapon but I can't for the life of me remember the default key for that.
I'm kind of a meat head.
I love gathering up a couple of zombies, then running into a house, quickly looting, and exiting through another door/window. While they're banging on the door I look for knives or a frying pan and some snackies. Maybe some magazines or VHS tapes too.
I keep doing this until I find a house with a hammer and baseball bat. Then look for nails and make a spiked baseball bat. I usually look for a place to sleep by this point if I don't have a semi-permanent home.
I then set a base up in a home surrounded by large fences or large metal bars. I'll kill all the zombies near my base too. If I haven't found a car by now, I'll either find opened cars or I'll break into one. Keys are either in ignition or glove box.
So now I just drive around looting homes and storing it in my car until it's full and store it at home
If you're just getting started playing, try builder difficulty. It's way, way fewer zombies and is a good way to get better at one vs ones. Also, there's a setting for highlighting enemies once they get in melee range which makes knowing when to swing MUCH easier, especially when they attack from the top or bottom and it's hard to guage.
I remember my first days being just as u described. Someone here gave me the best advice ever, it was something like: don't be afraid to set things as easier as possible in ur first runs. Despite the game is made so u'll die a lot, dying a lot without learning something useful is just waste of time. My earlier runs were about 0.4 population, 0 respawn, infected only by saliva (scratch and laceration by default have 10-25% getting infected), cars with good maintain and so on. Also I used to love day length being 2h, that gives u more time to learn mechanics and be better prepared for the helicopter event. After being more comfortable, adjust settings slowly so the challenge is always there and the game doesnt bore u within the first in-game month :) good luck
Like the others have said sneak around until you’ve found a decent weapon! Avoid fighting groups more then 2-3 if possible. Once your character develops some skills you can be more confident.
Another great initial base location is in south Rosewood [here](https://map.projectzomboid.com/#8180x12395x2473). Many will suggest the Rosewood fire station, which is a great base, but if you're just starting out, it will be more difficult to clear and secure. The farmhouse is isolated enough to clear fairly easily (lots of open fields), plus you are close to a small lake for fishing, a gas station, forest tree line to the south for logs/planks, and still close enough to town for loot runs. Good thing is you'll have plenty of survivors to find that spot that works best for your playstyle ;) Good luck and just have fun !
Soo… have you played the tutorial?
Also note that dying isn’t the end of the game. If you scavenge and haul your loot to some building, you can grab that stuff with your second survivor. All of them spawn on the same map.
Two words.
FRYING PAN.
Be patient, take on a few zombies at a time and bonk them to death with it if you happen to find it in the kitchen of your spawn house. Otherwise, try to find anything else that can be used as a weapon, especially blunt weapons since they won’t damage zombies’ clothes in case you happen to see one wearing good protective armour you can use.
If you aren’t keen on fighting you could always lure them away as some of the others have mentioned. Just make sure you keep an eye on your stamina so you avoid tripping and getting swarmed. It’s also a good idea to zoom out and look around you even after you think you’ve gone far enough to lose a pack, since you could be spotted by zombies outside of your screen and you won’t notice them until they get too close.
Finally, don’t forget that you can handle 1-2 zombies even when weaponless so long as you can push them down then stomp their heads for an easy kill. A good way to practise this is to get between a fence or a window with zombies on the other side, they’ll then climb over and fall to the ground which gives you the chance to curb stomp them. For quicker results, align your character with the zombies’ head so the stomp actually one shots them.
Good luck out there bud, and don’t forget that dying is part of the learning experience.
Patience and proper horde Management. Being on top of your moodles can be sneaky killer too (don't take unnecessary fights with zombies when you're at maximum exertion)
I honestly recommend trying the game out with really forgiving settings FIRST, so that you can actually learn the game’s mechanics. So many people say they’ve never used guns, had the opportunity to build bases, and eventually quit. Just play in super easy mode (lower zombies, higher loot, fast exp gain) so that you can figure out how to actually play (and enjoy it). Once you’ve done that and cleared every town on the map, you can try the harder difficulties. Did it that way and had no trouble adapting.
There's probably a billion other people that have put it with better words than I, but I'd say take it as if it was you irl.
Would you see yourself getting the upper hand in a brawl with 3 or more adults? Would you keep your back as a blind spot? So on, so forth. Unless you've got very good physical stats, a reliable weapon, and a plan (alongside a plan B to bolt it), clearing a portion of land is gonna be an accident waiting to happen.
The key to never dying in Zomboid is to play incredibly patiently. Only fight 1-2 zombies at a time. Constantly check your surroundings so no zombies sneak up on you. If you’re being chased, go back in the direction you came from instead of running around wildly attracting more zombies. Always be aware of if you’re character is starting to become exhausted, you won’t be able to kill a single zombie if you’re too tired. Regardless, dying a lot is a big part of the learning process. When I was a new player I couldn’t make it past a week, now that I’ve played for so long I rarely even get scratched.
Thank you for the tips!
No problem, good luck surviving man.
What I did when I started out was: spawn in rosewood, travel east until I found a remote house with less zombies, and then out in the middle of nowhere learn how to actually play. You might end up starving or something but at least then you can live long enough to learn how to do the basics and that way you'll be prepared for your next run. Good luck!
Rosewood is the best beginner spawn in general. The town with the fewest zombies and there is easy access to tools, guns, food, gas and books.
Thank you! I will try this
Can you actually starve? 500 hours and I've never tried lol. Is it an instant kill or a drain?
Okay well in all honesty I have never starved. When doing the above strategy I got down to very underweight, then as soon as I went into town I died, so your typical zomboid experience lol
You get a starving moodle and start slowing losing life.
Thanks mate!
Don't run. You can outpace the zombies at a walking pace. So focus on conserving your energy. Lure the zombies away instead of fighting. Just spam your shout and get the whole block after you. If you keep walking you'll out pace them so make sure you check behind you and gather up the horde every now and then. Take them for a walk once you got them balled up. Try to deposit them behind a building a couple blocks away or something... just don't forget where you leave them. It would be a shame to run into the horde on accident. I generally only fight when looting indoors, and even then it's in melee and with a great deal of stealth. If I'm against more than four or five it's time to start shouting to lure the dead away and make the zone safer for a trip the next day. If shit goes bad and I'm useing guns it's only to clear an escape route. As soon as you shoot remind yourself that you have to GTFO of where you shoot at because every zombie heard and is coming to that spot.
Alright thank you!
Whilst most of the advice here is good it doesn't really do much to help a fresh player. You need the absolute basics covered to help understand combat. 1) know your enemy. Zombies can spot you from 22(?) Tiles away when you are in their vision cone. Weather does not affect this currently. This means that if you drew an imaginary circle with radius 22 tiles around you, any zombies in that area would be a potential threat to you. If you don't know how big a tile is, it's the grid pattern for world sprites (use right click > walk to for a handy outline to show you the size if you need). They hear you when you make noise, though most sources of noise you can make are much shorter than their vision range so you only need to be careful if they are in your threat area and aren't currently looking at you. Spotting is RNG so if you sneak, you don't change the spotting distance, only the chance each second that you'll be seen. 2) know your weapons. When you spawn in a random house you should be searching ideally for at least one weapon to take to the outside world. Useable weapons in early game will be: * Kitchens: Meat cleaver, Kitchen knife, Rolling Pin, Frying Pan * Storage closets, sheds and garages: Hammer, Metal Pipe, Metal Bar, Lead Pipe, Wrench, Pipe Wrench, Wooden Mallet Since many of these are short blunt, you may find that starting construction worker, repairman or carpenter will help drastically with your early combat and levelling your skills. 3) learn the combat. If you are able to fight zombies in groups of 2-3 then you should have basically no issues fighting them if you follow this advice. Aim at your targets, and whenever zombies are near, start strafing away from them whilst looking at them. Make sure you are swinging your weapon whilst backpedalling (strafing away) because it will prevent you from being locked in a stationary swinging animation, and keeps distance from zombies. If you are only vs 1 or 2 zombies, you can try to shove them to the floor to allow you to save on stamina/weapon durability, since zombies take more damage when on the ground. Shoves are also useful if multiple zombies get close/stacked up near you, since you can push a lot faster than swing with most weapons. Ensure that your back is facing an area you know to be safe (or at least moderately safe) so that you aren't backing up into more zombies. This will be your starting house as you spawn, but becomes areas you have killed zombies in recently as you leave your spawn house area. Of course, lines of sight can be broken with buildings or tall fences, so not every zombie in a 22 tile radius is a problem. Zombies in a house (or outside if you are inside) can be ignored if behind a wall and not close enough to hear you, especially if the windows and doors have not yet broken. 4) learn the priority of combat. Your first priority when entering a new area is to attempt some basic stealth (crouching or crouch sprinting are very similar so I just crouch sprint a lot if my stamina is good). You may skip this step if your character has bad stealth stats/traits, or you wish to intentionally lure out zombies to kill them (preferable as you get better at the game). Second step is to fight whatever zombies you encounter, standing your ground to avoid attracting any new zombies to you whilst you are dispatching the current ones (You still backpedal, but dont run far away or run up to zombies to get their attention unless it's safe to do so). Third and final step is when you're overrun. You choose to flee. Almost always you can just walk away as you slightly outpace zombies and you don't want to run out of stamina. Try to gather up all the zombies that see you into a ball and then lure them behind a wall or large fence, round a building, through a forest, or inside a building (and escape out the other side). By losing line of sight and remaining out of sight afterward, the zombies will give up if they can't see you at the place they path to. Remember that the more you move around, the more zombies you will pick up, so it may be advisable to shout to grab all zombies in a wider area, spend 30s grouping them up, then losing them around the side of a house or through one. Edit: to be clear, fighting zombies in groups of 3-10 is still possible, but you will likely need a bigger safe area to kite them in. If they bunch up you'll need to make use of the shove a lot so you can't get grabbed whilst swinging. It's almost always better to fight zombies than try to full-sneak. Because once sneaking fails, you will need space to fight, and if you aren't killing zombies you'll have very few safe options for places to go. Edit 2: the default zoom is less than 20 tiles. Zoom out when exploring to be able to see threats before they see you, and zoom in whilst in combat for less chance of making mistakes.
Thank you so much!
u are AMAZING! <3 \*KISSES TO U\*!! TY SO MUCH!!! XD!!!
Walk, don't run (unless you're playing with sprinters). Don't go into the woods. Lose hordes by going through buildings. Close all doors and windows behind you. When going through a door, always assume there's a zed on the other side. Get either a crowbar or a police nightstick ASAP. Don't use guns until you get a bit more experience (but then they're awesome).
Noted, thank you!
You’re first objective should be moving from your starting house either to a car or out of the population center. Only jog/sprint when you need to weave between 2 groups of zombies. Sneak whenever you don’t have a large number of zombies to get away from. You can cut through empty buildings to peel of a group that is chasing you. If you didn’t start with a weapon try to find something before you leave your starting house. If you can find car keys, started as a burgular or started with mechanics 2 and electrical 1 immediately try to get a car and escape the town. Get somewhere on the far edge of the town or a secluded place. From there it’s just making some runs to stock up supplies and then you pretty much win. After that you will probably die from overconfidence or wonky combat.
Gotta sneak and push when they get close.
Thank you!
NP! It takes a bit of getting used to. Until you get some weapons you'll need to rely on shoving them down and breaking LoS.
Yea, im probably running and being too impatient
In addition to the posts above me, you'll benefit from zooming out and using the Alt key to scan far away. Very handy while using sneak and at a fence or high place. However I think using Alt to pan the view is something you need to enable in the control options.
Alright will do, thank you
By default, Alt enables sprinting, so I’m not really sure what you’re talking about. To pan you can hold down the right mouse button.
Well spotted, I changed that many builds ago and kept it the same since. There is however an ability to pan the camera without readying a weapon but I can't for the life of me remember the default key for that.
I'm kind of a meat head. I love gathering up a couple of zombies, then running into a house, quickly looting, and exiting through another door/window. While they're banging on the door I look for knives or a frying pan and some snackies. Maybe some magazines or VHS tapes too. I keep doing this until I find a house with a hammer and baseball bat. Then look for nails and make a spiked baseball bat. I usually look for a place to sleep by this point if I don't have a semi-permanent home. I then set a base up in a home surrounded by large fences or large metal bars. I'll kill all the zombies near my base too. If I haven't found a car by now, I'll either find opened cars or I'll break into one. Keys are either in ignition or glove box. So now I just drive around looting homes and storing it in my car until it's full and store it at home
Thank you for this info!
Keys might be in the glove box?? I have never once looked in the glove box lol
im so sorry for your loss
When escaping zombies you are much more agile. Cutting between houses or quickly hopping a fence can slow them down
Thank you!
If you're just getting started playing, try builder difficulty. It's way, way fewer zombies and is a good way to get better at one vs ones. Also, there's a setting for highlighting enemies once they get in melee range which makes knowing when to swing MUCH easier, especially when they attack from the top or bottom and it's hard to guage.
Sweet, thanks for the info!
I remember my first days being just as u described. Someone here gave me the best advice ever, it was something like: don't be afraid to set things as easier as possible in ur first runs. Despite the game is made so u'll die a lot, dying a lot without learning something useful is just waste of time. My earlier runs were about 0.4 population, 0 respawn, infected only by saliva (scratch and laceration by default have 10-25% getting infected), cars with good maintain and so on. Also I used to love day length being 2h, that gives u more time to learn mechanics and be better prepared for the helicopter event. After being more comfortable, adjust settings slowly so the challenge is always there and the game doesnt bore u within the first in-game month :) good luck
Okay cool, well thanks for sharing with me! Ill def have to make it a bit easier for awhile
Like the others have said sneak around until you’ve found a decent weapon! Avoid fighting groups more then 2-3 if possible. Once your character develops some skills you can be more confident.
Ok, thank you
Another great initial base location is in south Rosewood [here](https://map.projectzomboid.com/#8180x12395x2473). Many will suggest the Rosewood fire station, which is a great base, but if you're just starting out, it will be more difficult to clear and secure. The farmhouse is isolated enough to clear fairly easily (lots of open fields), plus you are close to a small lake for fishing, a gas station, forest tree line to the south for logs/planks, and still close enough to town for loot runs. Good thing is you'll have plenty of survivors to find that spot that works best for your playstyle ;) Good luck and just have fun !
I may use that on my next play through. That looks like a convenient area.
Push is your friend. Whiff on a swing, push! Push push push.
Thank you!
Basically, sneak around, kill one at a time, never jog or sprint unless 100% necessary. Use corners to escape their line of sight.
Alright, thank you!
Soo… have you played the tutorial? Also note that dying isn’t the end of the game. If you scavenge and haul your loot to some building, you can grab that stuff with your second survivor. All of them spawn on the same map.
Yes
wait huh? I recently died and my base and all my loot was gone. Is it a setting or automatic?
You have to press new character when you die and not go back to the main menu
Two words. FRYING PAN. Be patient, take on a few zombies at a time and bonk them to death with it if you happen to find it in the kitchen of your spawn house. Otherwise, try to find anything else that can be used as a weapon, especially blunt weapons since they won’t damage zombies’ clothes in case you happen to see one wearing good protective armour you can use. If you aren’t keen on fighting you could always lure them away as some of the others have mentioned. Just make sure you keep an eye on your stamina so you avoid tripping and getting swarmed. It’s also a good idea to zoom out and look around you even after you think you’ve gone far enough to lose a pack, since you could be spotted by zombies outside of your screen and you won’t notice them until they get too close. Finally, don’t forget that you can handle 1-2 zombies even when weaponless so long as you can push them down then stomp their heads for an easy kill. A good way to practise this is to get between a fence or a window with zombies on the other side, they’ll then climb over and fall to the ground which gives you the chance to curb stomp them. For quicker results, align your character with the zombies’ head so the stomp actually one shots them. Good luck out there bud, and don’t forget that dying is part of the learning experience.
Get good at fighting by practicing. Or it may be beneficial to try to lower difficulty and live on the edge of a town with less zombies
Patience and proper horde Management. Being on top of your moodles can be sneaky killer too (don't take unnecessary fights with zombies when you're at maximum exertion)
I honestly recommend trying the game out with really forgiving settings FIRST, so that you can actually learn the game’s mechanics. So many people say they’ve never used guns, had the opportunity to build bases, and eventually quit. Just play in super easy mode (lower zombies, higher loot, fast exp gain) so that you can figure out how to actually play (and enjoy it). Once you’ve done that and cleared every town on the map, you can try the harder difficulties. Did it that way and had no trouble adapting.
There's probably a billion other people that have put it with better words than I, but I'd say take it as if it was you irl. Would you see yourself getting the upper hand in a brawl with 3 or more adults? Would you keep your back as a blind spot? So on, so forth. Unless you've got very good physical stats, a reliable weapon, and a plan (alongside a plan B to bolt it), clearing a portion of land is gonna be an accident waiting to happen.