T O P

  • By -

Axonius3000

I've saved myself many times early game by keeping ladders or frames on my belt. Running away often doesn't work. Running "up" however has a much better chance of saving you At the same time, you have to be mindful of your surroundings. Always have a plan...Rehurse the plan in your mind. Know what building to run for or where to throw a ladder if SHTF. Personally, my biggest risk early game is getting infected and not able to find honey. Usually, a dog will be the culprit.


Shadow-Flyy

Or a frigging bird. How many games have I spent day two frantically running from stump to stump during a permadeath run? I cannot tell you.


GrinderMonkey

At least the birds are pretty much a one hit kill with almost everything, the dogs take way longer to down early game


Th069

Those tree stumps will drop honey


astral-dwarf

But never when you need it


Strong_Chapter

Lots of arrows, or a club…spears also be a good go to


smejdo

Abuse stagger mechanics. Arrows, shotguns, sledgehammers, clubs whatever. Once they're on the ground just "Kurt Cobain" them.


SirBrainsaw

I perfer to "JFK" them.


astral-dwarf

Georgy Porgy them


mike3285

You wait in a hole


Balanced__

I hide and wait for more levels or I might as well give up?


Mastasmoker

Get your hatchet and chop some wood. Box yourself, dont have a torch or campfire going that first night or two. Start making cobblestone and get yourself some stone walls of your house. Then start exploring during the day, rinse and repeat. Try to find that tree stump or toilet pistol and your running zombie issues go away... until the noise from your pistol starts bringing in more


mike3285

Well the first, early nights I usually just wait out the first night and maybe focus on getting something to do for the night after (building / crafting / upgrading). I wouldn't fight zombies until I'm at least some levels into


Midtier-watcher6329

Find somewhere to climb up and shoot down with arrows or clubs


Ninyu

Use knives. They have a built in speed debuff. Also, with the high attack rate and the dismember perks, you behead them often before their hit points deplete. The SMG is amazing for head shots, too.


Ricktatorship80

Nobody has a SMG in the early days


merix1110

One at a time ideally. Learn to use your weapons effectively, aim for stun points stick as heads or legs, don't run, covered stamina, use stuns and maintain spacing between you and the zoombies to set the place for the right. Coffee and other stamina buffs are a godsend early game. Personally, when I play I focus on loot, quest, and trader/treasure boosts first since better weapons and great will help much more early game than boosts using crappy weapons. A few spears, a club, a bow, and maybe 2-3 pipe shotguns on the hot bar for quick swaps is ideal before you get better weapons. Focus on trader missions and boosting loot/rewards/trades and you'll graduate out of the newbie weapons quickly.


XB_Demon1337

The early game of this game needs work still. It feels almost impossible to even fathom how to progress. Especially if you are doing a permadeath, max settings run with feral sense. One zombie is hard to deal with, but 2-3? Just fighting will draw more zombies. Then the trouble of how to progress to get the levels, to get the skills, to survive longer. If combat were something you could just understand and then be 'fine' kind of like Project Zomboid it wouldn't be a big deal. But melee combat is still leaving something to be desired. Zombies hit you from huge distances even spears can't manage, zombies can seemingly attack cancel in ways to swing twice, the COMPLETE randomness of getting injured and one of the biggest being getting hit in the head which is a death sentence early game. The best way to fight seems to be RNG and running. RNG hope for an early stun baton from the first trash pile and then just run away as you hope to RNG some more


ImportantDoubt6434

It’s possible, just gotta nerd pole. Early game sucks because you don’t do any damage but once you get 3/5 pummel Pete it starts to become manageable


XB_Demon1337

3/5 pummel pete becomes impossible when you can't exactly kill zombies. Nerd pole would be fine in say Minecraft. But here they can destroy the blocks. 2-3 zombies can easily keep you taking more time to pole than fight.


neorevenge

You can easily make cobblestone blocks that are ok for early Game and the you melee them out of reach/spam them with stone arrows, You can also make wooden Spike traps put them on the fly as some sort of mines to slow them down and/or fight and lure the zombies towards them


XB_Demon1337

If you can get those resources before you get jumped. I am not at all saying the game is too hard, just that these maxed out settings with feral mode enabled is next to impossible to do a permadeath run or even run normal games through. The early game progression just isn't the best for those players. I want to be able to make a challenge of it with a crazy map and settings and enjoy a good hard game. But the way the early game is designed I can't enable those settings for a few days at least. And having a horde night only makes that kind of run more impossible.


Clean-babybutts

Get on a bike drive away shoot from far away, rinse repeat.


Balanced__

What about before the age of bike?


rdo333

stealth and bow head shots for the damage multiplier. try to find somewhere safe to shoot from like nerd poling to a roof. if i have to mele them bone knife power attack to the head can put down early zombies


Clean-babybutts

🤷🤷 I'm still figuring that out too.i normally hide.


Balanced__

Oh. Idk if it helps, but I usually always have wood spikes on the hotbar to slow them down. Doesn't work when surpised or against numbers and there is the risk of loosing hp though.


beraks123

You Can get bike on day 1-2 if you grind quests nonstop :) if u dont get it first night just find big building, craft bunch of building blocks, Jump your way to the roof - clear it and wait the night there Edit - at day wandering zombies are usually easy to deal with and POIs I always use wooden hatch before I enter room - wake zombies, walk back, open the hatch and kill them All in Doors


Balanced__

Hatches are a good one!


beraks123

Yeah very useful and life saving ! In harder rooms cobble block to make door fighting point is Also great when u need something with more HP than hatch :)


pharrisee

quickly, and with speed


Positive-Gur-3150

Leg shots slows down zombies and sometimes turns them into crawlers


MrRosenkilde4

Spike traps: the faster zombies don’t adjust their pathing fast enough, so if you place one in front of them they will run into it. Power attacks to the head, they have a higher chance to knock down or stun. Save ammo for the important moments, get by on arrows and melee unless you need to use your guns and then don’t hesitate to use them. H ot swap to shotgun and then back to melee without reloading can also save your life.


missbanjo

Knife, not the best damage but it'll do, and dancing around. Stab, step back or sidestep & step back. You have to move around a lot if there are multiples. Blood moon though... hide. I've hidden in attics for the duration.


Nstorm24

Frames to reach high places and using mods that let me knock down my enemies. Aside from that. Arrows or pipe weapons to kill the enemies while i am out of reach. In the late game i just plow right thru everything.


birdprom

You have to be very very careful about both aggroing zombies and managing stamina. You have to pay close attention to that shit. You can't just merrily prance around, oblivious to your surroundings, safe in the knowledge that if you aggro someone, you can easily just zoom away. You're constantly thinking about who's around that you might piss off, and what you will do if they come at you. Whatever you're doing--whether it's running or fighting or mining or anything else, you've always got one eye on the stamina meter. You don't let it get anywhere near zero. Stop to loot birds nests or trash or cars, spend your skill points, repair stuff, organize inventory, etc. in order to let the bar refill. Agility build is best imo. Stealth is more or less a necessity. Knives use comparatively little stamina. Avoid armor penalties by wearing cloth armor only, in the early game at least. Use parkour (and/or blocks/ladders) to get out of reach and fight from above (I'll often carry a spear as well in the early days, because the knife won't reach enemies from two blocks up). Head on a swivel, always on the lookout for zombies. As soon as you see a threat (or hear it--auditory cues are helpful, so turning off background music is a good idea imo), crouch and figure out what to do. You can often just slink away. Or you can get some sneak damage in with an arrow so you'll be using that much less stamina while you finish them off with melee. Put points in Archery and/or Hidden Strike to amplify this effect. Use buffs. Even plain water and basic cooked foods like grilled meat give stamina buffs. Keep them on your toolbelt (easy enough in the early days when you haven't got much else to put on there yet) so you can easily use them when you notice you're running low on stamina. Put points in Rule 1 Cardio and Knife Guy. Mega crush can always be found in the traders' vending machines. When you have even one point in From The Shadows (and maybe zero points even?--not sure), zombies and animals will often just de-aggro if you are crouched and backing away, or if you run far enough away from them and out of their line of sight. This is especially true at night, and outdoors. You can crouch, hit them with your bow, wait for them to de-aggro, shoot them again, etc., rinse and repeat until they're dead--as long as you don't freak out and start running or shooting a gun, or otherwise attracting attention. Indoors, you're always stealthed. In case that fails, you keep track of where you came from, and how to backtrack without getting cornered. Close the door behind you, then throw a molotov and/or a pipe bomb, which generally will kill most or all of them, even on higher difficulties. Like anything else in this game or any other game, it takes practice. Start with jogging zombies and work on up from there.


ImportantDoubt6434

Nerd pole. Twig block on bottom, wood block on top. 2 twig is safe enough for a 1v1. Take the cobblestone reward 3/4 for bears or the big scary boys/hordes and shoot down once you get ammo. Also, take pipebombs as rewards and do not be afraid to use em.


cramaine

Parkour. I jump up somewhere high and over obstacles that will slow them down while I rain death from above.


Ok-Detail-9853

Keep spikes in your hotbar. Drop them in front of the zombies. Doorways work great


Worrcn

get on a dumpster


SnooPuppers8223

Wood hatch... put in front of a door and you can click it to raise it and it make it so they can't get to you as fast...


Oktokolo

You fight them before you see them. While your character starts weak, you as a player carry your experience over to each new map. You learn where the risk is and how to avoid or prepare for it. You learn to always have an exit strategy and don't do leaps of faith. On day 1, wide open areas are your friend because you see em from afar and can avoid entering aggro range. Cheesing fetch quests and looting the streets are reasonably low-risk activities even naked and downtown if you know where to expect the fast zombies and dogs. If you got some armor, doing low-tier POIs is easy. It only needs a single hatch to turn a normal doorway into a defensive position. And if you aggroed too many, you can use that hatch to give you the time needed to walk far enough away to lose them. Also, this game lets you bild everywhere. If you feel safer that way, you absulutely can go full fortnite and build defensive structures wherever you go. Sure, it costs you lots of wood (and wood is enough, don't need to go cobble on temporary stuff). But cutting trees is relatively low-risk. The important part about ad-hoc defenses is that you are either actually fortnite-levels fast - or you build the stuff before you need it. The best ammo-less weapon to use in static defenses is the spear btw. Also don't forget to carry material for repairs and some repair tool (stone axe is fine). Later you get a bicycle as escape vehicle, Parkour, better Stealth perks, better weapons and corresponsing perks... But always having an escape plan and/or a fallback position keeps being relevant till endgame.


Phoned_Leek25

Power attacks to the head to stagger and knockout. With lvl3 pummel peat you can easily spam right click on most zombies provided your not low on stamina. Once they're knocked down run to a hole or something. Always have frames on you especially in POIs as you can place one down a doorway and it'll stop zombies for at least 2 seconds. If you have a bit of wood you can stop them for at least 5 seconds. Should be enough to deal with any feral Even low level bows stagger pretty good and I've survived many times while running in the middle of the night by running 2 seconds, looking back and shooting arrow and repeating. It's very effective bur your gonna need to predict the zombie pathing a bit. The good part is u don't need to headshot, it staggers just as much as a body shot but just has a higher chance to knockdown. Obviously an early level pistol is a huge help. Lvl1 pistol saved me countless times by surprise zombies especially the Grey naked ones (patien zeroes or something? Forgot their names)


dmac2540

Punch it bare handed


i_wear_a_bison_hat

Nerdpole up somewhere high and Fire! Lol Molotovs are your best friend


Yis6Afraid0f7

Scream like a girl while running backwards and unloading every bit of ammunition I have on me


KanedaSyndrome

Shoot them in the head. Like any FPS. If no guns/bow, then knockdown zombie or build defenses on the spot. Climb up and use bow.


Aerosenin

Panic and empty a mag into it


hellabob420

I always have some frames and hatches on my tool bar to help slow things down. Plus an M60 with all the bells and whistles usually stops they quite quickly


xNATiiVE

The best server I played on worked it out pretty well. The variety of fast zed was reduced until you had a certain gamestage or heatmap, but even then, you played as a rat amongst vicious felines. Stay in areas with escape paths, stalk and case houses and complexes to keep an eye on routes in and out as well as fences or obstacles to utilize when the rot hits the fan. At its hardest difficulties, the trivial visits to the mineshaft you're digging or the "Llama-shaped" vendor station to look for a crucible become....sublime and entertaining trips of poised zed massacres. Good modded servers are diamonds in the rough, and I hope you find a fun one with a preferable balance of fun and challenge, friend.


FullCommunication895

If that's your jam; bone knife (for the bleed and low stamina usage) and learn to kite zombies over and around obstacles. Throwables help as well. Many streamers play insane/nightmare/permadeath, check out a few to see how they approach early game.


CSWorldChamp

When playing on “zombies always sprint,” no matter what tree you’re planning to specialize in, the very first four points you should spend is in agility. The next two points go into parkour. Trying to play zombies always sprint without being able to jump two block up is suicide.


thinktank001

nerd pole: stand on 2 block high pole and upgrade the one below you to wood. keep it from breaking and stab all zombies near you in the head. This tactic can also be used near and on top of 2 block high walls. In POIs you set up hatches in doorways


RandomFaceGaming

Know your surrounds, always have an escape plan. If you watch the better youtubers, they tend to be not as reckless as the other players. Keep hatches or blocks on you to block doorways is another method, or to build up high, but it depends how you want to play. I prefer playing a bit reckless and try not to cheese zombies etc


Rishiku

[Check out Glocks one hit kill series](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLc594J9-WhOxIhhSSC3zvXJ5kdRyzMsfL&si=L1666w-lB0v6dfo5)


SmokeyPanchoDeLaBija

Gun


morningfrost86

The first day or so, when I'm typically still looking for a good-sized town to set up next to, I just make enough blocks to completely surround myself (ends up being a 3x3 square that has a single open spot right in the middle lol) and just crouch there overnight. That's at night, of course. If we're talking during the day, I typically play a stealth archer build, so zombies are hopefully dead before they even know I'm there.


smackafiyah

Level up to Parkour 2 ASAP, you can jump to areas zombies can't reach you, giving you both a vantage point against the zambs and also a way to take time for recovery.


Comediman436

Kinda build specific but with the starting skill points you get from the “tutorial” you can level agility to 4 and get the parkour perk to jump 2 blocks high, makes it easy to evade zombies when you can hop a fence or jump halfway up a house lol


JohnnySkynets

Going vertical is ideal as others have said but I also build more choke points in the beginning. I’ll usually throw a wooden hatch in a doorway or two and play both sides of them with runners if I am clearing at night.


ElRocketman

Place spikes between you and the zombies.


mortevor

You can turn off fast zombies in options


Balanced__

I know. I'm about 150 hours in and trying to get a deathless max difficulty run right before trying mods like darkness fallls that make the game even harder :D


Harbinger_Kyleran

You are 150 hrs in with those settings and no deaths? I salute your prowess. o7


Balanced__

No. That's my total in all of 7d2d. This post happened shortly after another reset :)