How Do I Fight Zombies Effectively?

[I Am A Giant Cookie]

Please help a newbie out. I've gone through about 10 characters so far, and none of them have survived past day 2. I generally do okay with looting the houses on the same block as my spawn house, but once I start branching out to other blocks and can't do the "zombie tumbles over low fence and I smash their head in" trick anymore, I inevitably die. While I can usually take a zombie 1v1 in a no-fence fight (though no guarantees), I pretty much always get bit once it's 2v1 or more, and I've heard that getting bit is an automatic game over, though a bit delayed.
If I try to draw them back to my house to do the fence trick, zombies tend to respawn and wander in from other directions, and then I eventually get sandwiched/mobbed. If I fight out in the open, I die once I accidentally pull 2+ zombies, or I try to retreat back to my house and get sandwiched, etc.
Is there another way to fight zombies? Or a way to pull one of them aside from body pulling? I'm usually using a meat cleaver, since that's pretty much the only weapon I can find. (I haven't figured out crafting, aside from making bandages.)
I'm also terrible at stealth - I'm always crouching, but zombies still detect me even when I sneak up directly behind them. Is there some sort of distraction I can do that will ensure they're looking away from me as I sneak up?

[Dizzy Ioeuy]

Better weapons really do help- baseball bats for example. Keep hunting for weapons? Also find sharp stones and sticks (the action of searching when you move forget what it's called) to make spears- almost one shots zombies. Rocks in roads and sticks from forests.

[DEMANATI]

I’m new too, from my understanding. It’s best to avoid zombies if possible during the first couple days. Also your career can also affect your combat effectiveness. We’ll get better with trial and error lol. Also l, you can tweak the settings so it’s easier for you. Like less zombies and stuff so you can focus on learning instead of surviving

[I Am A Giant Cookie]

The zombies are guarding the houses that I want to search, so I need to kill them. My stealth is not good enough to hide from them - I'm usually spotted as I'm crossing the road, even when crouching.

How do I search as I move? I don't think I've ever found any stones or sticks. I didn't see any search function when I click on the ground and bring up the menu.

[Keldar]

Originally posted by I Am A Giant Cookie:

Please help a newbie out. I've gone through about 10 characters so far, and none of them have survived past day 2. I generally do okay with looting the houses on the same block as my spawn house, but once I start branching out to other blocks and can't do the "zombie tumbles over low fence and I smash their head in" trick anymore, I inevitably die. While I can usually take a zombie 1v1 in a no-fence fight (though no guarantees), I pretty much always get bit once it's 2v1 or more, and I've heard that getting bit is an automatic game over, though a bit delayed.
If I try to draw them back to my house to do the fence trick, zombies tend to respawn and wander in from other directions, and then I eventually get sandwiched/mobbed. If I fight out in the open, I die once I accidentally pull 2+ zombies, or I try to retreat back to my house and get sandwiched, etc.
Is there another way to fight zombies? Or a way to pull one of them aside from body pulling? I'm usually using a meat cleaver, since that's pretty much the only weapon I can find. (I haven't figured out crafting, aside from making bandages.)
I'm also terrible at stealth - I'm always crouching, but zombies still detect me even when I sneak up directly behind them. Is there some sort of distraction I can do that will ensure they're looking away from me as I sneak up?

First:
Don't run into fights. Let fights come to you. If you need to, fight on your own terms. Means, Just fight one or two Zeds max, especially when syou are undergeared/new to the game. Crouching is key, and using Shout ( Q Standard Keymapping ) while crouched means your Char whispers. That can be enought to make a zed turn to you without alerting a whole bunch.

Second:
Use your Surroundings. Fences are awesome. hop over it, and wait for the zed(s). They will fall over it, which means you can easilly kill them. Also, downed zombies cannot attack when you or another Zed is standing over them. Profit! Same rule is for Windows. Zeds just fall inside, and you can just stomp em to death

Third:
Stomping Zeds is awesome. Skills Maintenance and shoes are way easier to find at the start then weapons. Using upper strats, you can save weapon health for critical situations. And if there are too much zeds just retreat. It's a win if you can fight another day with the same character

Fazit:
Skills are learning by doing. Stealth for ex. is skilled by sneaking around zeds without being noticed. So you will get better in the end. Use your surroundings to your advantage. You will die. Alot. My first 100 hours i barely survived a weak.

[Oragepoilu]

Learn how the basic work :

Always stand still when possible.
Never run (alt).
Never jog unless for a brief period of time to go between two zombies to escape a group closing in.
Unless there is only 2 z left and you know you can recover after, never attack if you have a moddled tied to your stamina (reduced damage).
Always make sure to avoid going out at a time when you might start to be tired. Sleep instead, or do something else.
Carry a tiny amount of foofd eventually to avoid the hungry moodle unless there is some food source nearby where you go (if ou loot it's ok).

You can zoom the camera out more if you change the options in game.
Zoom out at max and spot pack of zombies.
slowly go toward them and wait for a few to spot you. Then go back and wait for them to come, instead of having to deal with all of them at the same time. Crouching is largely useless at low level - while it doesn't hurt to level up, you need to split the group.

You can (ans should) activate aim outline to make it more easy.

1 v 1
Stand still, push when he get close (don't spam or you will miss). once he is down, walk over him untill your left foot touch their hair/top of their skull.
Why ? You character have a "cone" of range in front of him that determine what body part you hit. As long as the center of your character touch the torso part of a zombie on the ground you won't deal head damage because the closest body part take priority, so you what you need to see is you stomping over his head and looks like you are missing but you are actually doing a stomp on their head.

You can pres salt to force a stomp attack instead of relying on the game to decide if you stomp or attack normally.

1 v 2
Stand still/walk back while aiming. Push the first zombie, then the other untill one drop down.
When it happen keep pushing the one standing still while you walk over the one down.
Being on top of a zombie prevent him from raising up.
Then push the other untill both are down, then proceed to head stomp one.
If they fall close together you can stomp one after each other to prevent them from rising up.

It can be slighty more stamina consuming to keep pushing, make sure you rest. (sit on the ground).

1 v 3
Basically the same, but instead you try to make sure you push two zombie on the ground on the same spot so you can walk here. Or you use a weapon and slowly reduce their health as you backpedal away.

Note : when aiming you slow down. It's tied to your skill. At first you will be too slow but later you will be fast enough to never be caught while going backward and aiming.
Thr trick to avoid being caught when you need to go away from melee is to turn first, then stop aiming. Otherwise you may either stand still for a moment before you do a 180° and they might catch you.

When you jog or run, and touch a zombie you can "bump" them. When it happen both of you may play an animation and move like you are falling making hard to control.
However this can used to go trough zombie. While jogging is relatively safe if it doesn't push trough 2 zombies. Running can : walk near them and as you are in melee range start running for a brief moment. You will likely fall after that tough and get an injury so it's last ressort.

1 v 654654358796879813

Not really harder per see, but stamina is now an issue. Not ideal before you get more skills.

If you have a good weapon with high crit chance/high damage (crafted spear for example) you want to spread zombie in line.
First, shoot (Q) to draw everybody on you. Then circle around and make sure they all make a single pack.
Then if you have a high fence or building without door/windows walk next to it they will naturally line themself.
Stay in close range of the first 2-3 zombie; they will raise their arms and walk faster. Use this to make separate them from the group and give you enough time to kill them.

You could also use tree, fence, bush to change their speed and make them spread a bit but it's going to take a while.

If that's just a small group (10-25) you can probably kill them with some weapon, if you are in good condition. Unless you get spotted by more z.

if that's the case , simply walk around, keep shooting (reminder : zombie spawn in building only if you are less than 10 tiles away from said building and you can see inside), pack them all, and slowly go somewhere else to leave them here (2 screen away max zoom out at least).
Then jog around the pack using wall, fence, windows, door to block patch/view to prevent them from catching up to you and finding you again. When they stop seeing you they go toward the last spot you are, but a few second after they last see you. So even if they stop seeing you right now they still know where you are a few second after.
From here you casically need to hide from that last spot they have in memory, while not being seen again and they will stop chasing you.

house works great because fence, windows force them to check where you are again. if they can see you after they climb they might walk a bit at best but you are good to go.

Don't go upstairs before you clean your surrounding because they can spot you from the windows or hear you from bellow and walk upstair, and it's very hard to escape if you need to.
You can safely jump one level down btw - don't have too much weight (don't go over your cap and you are fine) and don't keep doing it, as you take "invisible" hand and feet damage when you do so that take some time to recover and if you keep doing it you will break a bone. but as you play the animation when you jump you cannot move for a bit and might get attacked so it's not ideal.

Also, on character creation, max out fitness/strengh. way better this way when you are learning. Try not to play the game but instead learn in detail how to safely kill zombie using the infos I gave you (or check some yt videos, but a lot of them have some wrong/bad advices, including popular one like the duck).

[Animalman]

Melee Strike Direction is meaningful.

Using long blunt, striking at an angle slightly left or right of center(of zombie) As in, you are at an angle to the turn rate of the zombies forward. Can help with knockdown.

Character will strike differntly depending on this angle, Sometimes it is an overhead strike, others it is an angled strike. The angled strike is the one i prefer. Though sometimes a head on overhead strike drops the zombie to its knees, not always though.

Similar

Striking behind with a knife, can reveal some of the power of a back stab. The zombie can move a huge distance. Sometimes avoiding a stealth kill. The back stab.


Shorter weapons of blade and blunt can be better than longer blunt weapons if your character is preserving energy.

Switch between weapons, Long to Short, or Blunt to Blade. If you are not having the effect during combat, try switching weapons.

Do not be depressed in combat you cannot switch weapons quickly.

Do a bit of a dance, left and right as you wait for the zombie to appraoch. this can help get some angled hits in.

Some weapon like axe can be more punishing for a missed strike. Though having an axe at hand is a very strong alternative to long blunt. You might use a wooden mallet on belt, and a hunting knife, and an axe on the back.
You would try to fight with the mallet and blade, but if overwhelmed you might switch to the axe.

If you still struggle to do this. focus on spear.
I would advise to use as many different class of weapon as often as you can.
If you looted a good spear, then use the good spear, if a zombie had one stuck into it. Spear is disposable, there are so many of them sometimes, but they are weak as hell, but the kill ratio is quite high. You'd always want to preserve your looted weapons like axe, and wooden mallet or club hammer, hunting knife, cleaver when possible.

[Prowler™]

The only trick is to level up nimble. At lv4 nimble you become untouchable vs vanilla zombies as your combat stance is faster than their move speed. Dying from that point is your own fault. Don't run into a crowd like a clown haha

[I Am A Giant Cookie]

How do you reliably push a zombie? I sometimes see my character do a push when I'm fighting them, but it seems more of a auto-reaction to a zombie grabbing of my character or something rather than something I'm meaning to do. (Usually if I can't knock down a zombie after 3 hits, the zombie gets too close and that's when my character pushes.) Am I supposed to wait for a certain attack animation or something so that I can push?

I have yet to find an axe or long weapon. All the weapons I've found so far are kitchen-related (meat cleaver, frying pan, etc) and twice a crowbar. My characters have never survived day 2 yet, so I've only looted 5-8 houses by the time I die. And I'm not necessarily dying to hordes, as I said, fighting 2 zombies out in the open usually leads to me getting bitten, unless I get lucky and can kill one quickly. Though, of course, I've gotten bitten fighting a single zombie too. I'd say about 30% of my deaths are to fighting a single zombie, 50% to 2-3 zombies, and 20% to 10+ zombies.

I'm using right-click aiming when fighting, but my aim is awful while the zombie is standing up/moving. I'm good at stomping them when they're on the floor, but when fighting one in a straight up battle, I'm just hacking/bashing at them until they fall down and not really aiming well.

All my skills are at level 0, because again, I can't survive long enough to build up any skills.

[gods drunkest driver]

Originally posted by I Am A Giant Cookie:

How do you reliably push a zombie? I sometimes see my character do a push when I'm fighting them, but it seems more of a auto-reaction to a zombie grabbing of my character or something rather than something I'm meaning to do. (Usually if I can't knock down a zombie after 3 hits, the zombie gets too close and that's when my character pushes.) Am I supposed to wait for a certain attack animation or something so that I can push?

I have yet to find an axe or long weapon. All the weapons I've found so far are kitchen-related (meat cleaver, frying pan, etc) and twice a crowbar. My characters have never survived day 2 yet, so I've only looted 5-8 houses by the time I die. And I'm not necessarily dying to hordes, as I said, fighting 2 zombies out in the open usually leads to me getting bitten, unless I get lucky and can kill one quickly. Though, of course, I've gotten bitten fighting a single zombie too. I'd say about 30% of my deaths are to fighting a single zombie, 50% to 2-3 zombies, and 20% to 10+ zombies.

I'm using right-click aiming when fighting, but my aim is awful while the zombie is standing up/moving. I'm good at stomping them when they're on the floor, but when fighting one in a straight up battle, I'm just hacking/bashing at them until they fall down and not really aiming well.

All my skills are at level 0, because again, I can't survive long enough to build up any skills.

press right click or control and press space to push, though it might not make the zombie fall the first try

[gods drunkest driver]

what kind of builds do you like to use?

[pzhda'tan]

So you have no issue finding a weapon, which is good. But if you find yourself in a pinch, ignore the zombies and walk towards some homes and walk through the front door and out the back door. Or if not, go behind the house, stand still for a second and jog away to the nearest garage or two storey building for good melee options.

Fighting over fences is extremely dangerous and I recommend you avoiding it entirely if there are more than 6 zombies. You want to delete zombies quickly, open a window or multiple windows just in case, lure zombies in to the window and ground attack them manually. Unlike fence fighting, window fighting is safe as you won't get lunged at from the sides. The real manual ground attack is holding the ground attack keybind and stomp keybind, this will make your attacks faster than holding the regular attack button.

[Oragepoilu]

Reading your message I suggest taking a loot at your hotkey, since being able to press alt to force attack the ground and being able to push/stomp on command (instead of using your weapon durability) is pretty much required if you want to be succesful.

Being able to correctly judge where/when you can attack (aiming, timing) will come over time. The game is terrible at showing distance (since it use tiles in an iso view) so it's normal to struggle at the start (thats why using outline is useful, on top of helping when it's dark).

[I Am A Giant Cookie]

Lucky character #13 managed to survive until day 3, mostly thanks to pushing. (I already was using hold right-click + space as my stomp, I just didn't realize it was also push) Though I still died when 3 zombies wandered to my base from the last direction I had yet to clear. I really should have won that fight, but I missed a killing blow against a crawling zombie and got knocked me down, and the other 2 mobbed before before I could open up some distance again.

I don't have a build, all settings are default. I take the faster item transfer, less sleep required and lucky traits with the spare points. I thought about selecting a job instead, but since I have no idea what weapons will be in/near my spawn, it's just a guessing game if the job would even be useful (or, useful in the short amount of time I have before I die).

[Oragepoilu]

Check the job stats and perk stats bonus. Try to max out fitness and strengh instead as it make the game way more easy. While fast item transfert is good, Wakeful is also nice for a beginner so keep them.

Conspicuous is free point depending how you play. I often want to split pack from a distance, so allowing zombie to see me when they are looking in my direction maek thing more easy. If I take the opposite trait, I might need to either wait until one notice me, or walk too much closer and have too much zombie spotting me at once.

High Thirst is easy to deal with, especially early. The only real downside is the space water take in your inventory, but you can refill your bottle everywhere with left over in sink and whatever anyway.

Prone to Illness do nothing but make cold harder to deal with, but give +4 while Outdoorsman cost -2 and make cold extremely rare (unless you stay under heavy rain with bad clothing). Even without outdoorsman, you don't get a cold unless you act in a very stupid way (tip : don't be cold and you won't catch a cold).

Slow Healer is also free point basically since injury are rare (or when it happen, it's likely you might be dead soon regardless), and make them more severe (painful, but who care - take some painkiller).

Weak Stomach again free point - food illness is not a thing unless it's a mistake, you can still eat 16 hunger worth of rotten food every 12h with this trait and be perfectly fine beside a short queezy moodlet. On the other hand iron gut doesn't really protect you anyway because it only givea chance to not be sick from the food, but won't protect from food poisoning (the part that is deadly and kill you stupidly fast once you reach the threeshold).

Hearty Appetite is a "bad" trait but being able to eat more make it more easy to meet your calorie quota per day and avoid losing weight. It's a gain if you intend to eat low calories food (foraging, farming).

With this and some other perk depending what is relevant to you you can get some more stats.

[Animalman]

Drop lucky -->

take Brawler or Baseball Player
take Hunter
Play somebody with a short blunt, how about a Carpenter?