How Do You Avoid Zombies?

[Fastdash]

I have only been able to survive a day when I lowered the zombie population. Every other time as soon as I walk out of the house, I start getting swarmed after a minute even when sneaking.

"Oh, it's just one or two. I should be able to handle it."

More start showing up.

"Well crap. I'll break line of sight with this house."

There's more behind the house.

"...Maybe the forest?"

They start streaming out like they're the Vietcong. Now I have like 10 on me, and trying to get away will only lead to me getting spotted by more.

FYI: I'm spawning in Riverside, which is supposed to be the noob friendly area.

[Malala]

need to one shot any single zombie, at least 2 shot (one on the head when they're pushed down), that's up to 3, maybe 4 coming at you. if >5 (music will change to cue), run away to the direction you already cleared immediately, turn at least 3-5 corners (best to climb a high fence)

[Korhal]

Do you crouch/sneak? Depening on your lvl on Lightfooted and Sneak, zeds can hear/see you easier, also traits help or hinder you, especially traits like clumsy are horrible.

[Fastdash]

Originally posted by Korhal:

Do you crouch/sneak? Depening on your lvl on Lightfooted and Sneak, zeds can hear/see you easier, also traits help or hinder you, especially traits like clumsy are horrible.

I am sneaking, and I'm not really investing much time into character builds for my first runs as I get used to things, so they're basically just a career and maybe one positive trait.

[Ykario]

To being with, I suggest going with Burglar. It comes with some lightfooted to not get spotted, and free cars.

To get rid of zombies, there's numerous ways :
High fences, but be carefull of what's on the other side.
Going into trees for quite some time and coming back further away.
Using low fences to your advantage : Zombies will fall from them and that's an easy one shot for you.
Use doors / windows, too. You can enter a house, push the door / hit it to attract zombies to it, and then go out from a window etc; they'll be focused on the door.

[Korhal]

Its hard to say without seeing what you are actually doing, so we can only provide basically "common knowledge".
Definitly break LoS, like Ykario said, sneaking through the woods - preferably with the "walk to" function - can lead to a serious advantage and makes you lose even larger groups of zeds.
Getting a fence or even house between you and them will make them check the corner, but if you cut another one, you are practically out of the woods.
If you manage to get into a house, try to sneak out from a different angle through a window.

DO NOT engage into nearby combat. Even if other zeds see you, they do not communicate, so sometimes losing 10 zeds for getting spotted by only two is still better than the adding another two to your ongrowing hoard.

If you getting yourself spotted a lot, you might use the following:

Burgluar
Gymnast
+3 Lightfooted and +2 Sneaking

Also Graceful and Inconspcious, which further adds to your "Sneak-Build."

Tip: If you can, get out of your shoes. Yes, it sounds dumb, but walking on foot or with socks tremendously lowers the voice you are making while running/walking/sneaking and can make you getting close to a single zed from behind.
Last tip: A "stealth" kill with a short sharp weapon, like a knife, does not make any sound, so you can kill single or small groups of zeds through that way.

[Andy Mil]

You gotto not panic like the tutorial suggest and stick to your own house. Must draw only one at a time to you if you wanna fight. The electronic and water not going to shut off yet so you got all times in the game to clear the your house yard. The tree also infested like Vietcong too so unless you plan to live in the woods. You shouldn't go there

[Korhal]

Maybe this can help you as well: https://i.redd.it/iq7m7imzke261.png

Its an old map about the zed-density, the more red it gets, the more zeds there are.

[KillerKommando]

Something to be aware of as well; the more naked you are, the more easily damaged you are. Walking through trees (as opposed to around them) may inflict wounds that need to be bandaged. Removing my shoes in game to just socks seemed to damage my feet/legs more, maybe use that one sparingly (and not over broken glass!).

I like to find a working vehicle, then attempt to congregate many of the ones around a potential safehouse together in the street. Use the car to make short work of the zombies as a group. When there's down time you can pile the corpses into the vehicle's trunk, take them away to another location, then dump them so they're not an issue for your future vehicles (or disease).

Personally, I'm not all that great at survival and am not fond of losing all your character's progress if you get scratched/lacerated by a zombie which makes the default Apocalypse mode not very fun for me. I tone down the population by a fair bit, boost item spawn rates, and turn zombification to bite only. I also add about 20 skill points at the start just to pick the traits that give you less visibility and more quietness (and experiment).

There's no shame in playing in a way that makes the game fun, that's likely the entire reason the devs implemented a sandbox mode.

[Turd King]

My best advice is to backup your saves. I like Ironman modes and this game is good, however the movement/combat is wonky poo poo. So I like to set backup save restrictions, example only backup once per in game week or so.

Dying honestly I delete my save. Dying because my character did a 180 out of the blue......

anyways enjoy. the start is ugh...

(also the further you zoom out the quieter sounds get. zoom in move slow and a lot of the time you can hear z's before seeing them)