Noob tips and tricks for a good experience?

[RockDad]

Never played this game before. Saw it on sale and figured why not. I know a few basic tips like don't go out at night and don't feel the need to kill everything but i was wondering if anyone had any other lesser known tips.

[Grungler]

Hold space when jumping and look at the ledge you wanna jump to.
I have fallen many times and almost gotten killed because I forgot to hold space.

Another thing is that know the terrain since going out at night is good for grinding agility and other skills since skill gain is increased during the night.

Don't go out until you get the UV flashlight unless you wanna play it risky (get it by doing the main quest line) since that's pretty much your main defense from the night monsters.

Press q constantly since that will alert you to runner zombies or other things to be wary of, and loot.

Large zombie hordes are a death trap so try and fight 1v1-4 early on when your still getting the hang of things/don't have good gear.

Keep molotovs for humans since fighting them with melee is hard if you don't have good gear.

You should be able to find everything else out and I hope I haven't spoiled too much for you.

[RabbitRidge]

IMHO: focus on increasing your skill sets early and applying them; not on obtaining the best possible weapons (all weapons naturally become better as you increase skills).

[bradrg]

-Kick a lot in the beginning, that way your weapons will not break as quickly.
-Use water. Infected cannot swim.
-The volatiles (night infected) have a cone in front of them on the map, showing you what they can see. If you stay out of that cone they will not spot you even if you run, make a noise or use a torch.
-practice lockpicking. all the best weapons are in chests and police vans.
-you will get more money than you can ever use. So every time you find a merchant, buy up all their upgrade material like string, metal wire etc
-once a weapon is broken, don't drop it, rather dismantle it so that you can get the metal wire.
-Bottom right corner of the map is a small island with Excalibur on it. The sword breaks quickly, but you can use the broken weapon to launch zombies after you have unlocked the power attack. This is quite fun to do.
-Have fun, it's a fantastic game.

[RabbitRidge]

Concerning skills:

* Head Stomps rule - run to car rooftops/dumpsters or such when surrounded by normal infected and get even higher when Virals run at you (Stomp them on the head as they climb up).

* Camouflage is great especially when combined with Takedown. But poisoned infected (visible gas emanating from them) can take quite a while to finally die as they hack it out. To counter this, push them slight forward as part of the Takedown and you can instantly get another Camouflage cover (it doesn't stack but does reset the amount of time you have). Also if you time the animation of Camouflaging just right to quit exactly at full circle, you get the effects but without all the guts obstructing your view. Water washes off Camouflage and sprinting decreases the time (so don't get excited and just walk among them which also makes less noise that can potentially alert Virals).