What're Your Playing Habits?

[NuclearSharkhead]

First off I want to thank everyone in this community for being so nice and supportive each other in our combined efforts to get the most out of this early access game!

 

Some of us know far more than others when it comes to survival, but I like how you guys are always interested in learning more about map locations, unexplained mysteries, the modding scene, etc. Unlike other communities, you guys don't shut each others' strategies down or show any elitism really. This is very important toward building a lasting playerbase, especially as we draw nearer toward the release of multiplayer.

 

On that note I would like to ask you all about your playing habits. I'm not just referring to what you do while in the game, I'm referring to what drives you to continually launch the game, and what kind of attitude or style or planning you have before you jump in.

 

For instance, when I first started playing, I used to simply jump into the game and do whatever I wanted, but after ten or fifteen characters, I've adopted a more careful approach. Before I even launch the game, I pull up the browser-based map and decide which "district" I want my character to start in, what my main goals are, what playstyle and traits will be best to accomplish those goals, and so on.

 

As soon as I start the game and spawn in the district, I prefer to pause the game and figure out where I am on the map, then adjust my plans accordingly. My plans have to be simple and achievable, but at the same time have room for incredible flexibility, as zombies could delay them very easily. I don't even unpause the game until I am sure I have a solid plan in mind, as well as some kind of backup plan in case things go horribly wrong.

 

Honestly, there are very few games I play where I feel like an American football coach planning out a player's moves throughout a field as the opposing team tries to tackle him/her. But PZ seems to be that game for me, and it gives me a thrill unlike any other. Every time I wrap up a plan, I am absolutely excited to give it a go.

[silents429]

Ill bite.


My playstyle is putting me in the game basically, If I would run my ass out of somewhere my character will too.

Otherwise I pretty much play wreckless til it comes to going home.

Only time I can play this is when the sunlight is shining in my bedroom though.

[MadDan]

I try to be careful, then I go out and see a horde an I'm like, you know what? What can a group of zeds to do me? I'm well equipped with a kitchen knife if all goes to hell. Then, 5 minutes later,

 

I die.

 

 

Seriously, that happens the majority of the time. I lasted over a month with one character a while ago and at that time on Zed got me infected. I can be careful. I just get a thrill seek in the heat of the moment.

 

In the future: "Oh gunshots, I'm unarmed but heavily stocked on supplies, let's go see what happened!"

[Bartender]

Cool bases usually keep me motiveted to build my own. Anything zombie related makes me want to play PZ.

[Armeretta]

I usually play Pz as a nomad, going house to house, assembling a tent kit. I often get bored of it about 2 months or so in and start base building. That eventually gets lonely, so I start to roam again. That sort of just repeats until the inevitable ankle biter or closet dwelling zombie surprises me with angry hugs and kisses.   

[EniracY]

I tend to do much like Armeretta does, nomad around and all that. What often happens is I see a house I like the look of (it's usually one of those dollhouse-looking houses) and start to base in there.

I seem to have awful luck finding any hammers or trowels, so it's usually when I'm on a quest to find one of them that I die.

 

When I launch the game all I think about is trying to beat how long I survive for. So far I've lasted ... a week! I'm not very good at being careful ...

[Jela331]

I like setting up a base, controlling areas of the city, go into badass mode sometimes(take out a pistol and BRING ON DA ZOMBIES) and looting places. Oh, I like making categories for stuff I need. Farming stuff, perishables and non-perishables, building stuff, kitchen stuff, weapons.

[Guest]

I usually play Pz as a nomad, going house to house, assembling a tent kit. I often get bored of it about 2 months or so in and start base building. That eventually gets lonely, so I start to roam again. That sort of just repeats until the inevitable ankle biter or closet dwelling zombie surprises me with angry hugs and kisses.   

You read my mind. I do this exactly, except for getting bored. I never make a safe house.

[Onomatopesha]

As of lately, i've been playing as a nomad, setting up temporary bases in an already familiar zone (residentials usually, or large shops). Letting all unnecessary equipment behind, i explore as much as possible, scavenging a percentage of food and water from other houses, so as to always have a backup plan if i can't get to where i was and need a place to stay. 

My biggest problem so far has been setting up a fort and farm fast enough to endure light shutoff, which so far, is what usually comes first for me, which later on becomes a desperation run for supplies from houses, looking for bags of chips, or just getting tired of doing the same tours and ending up playing with luck by going on a rampage with a shotgun (because axes don't clean streets fast enough ).

[rorschach]

I started playing in Muldraugh and had several characters there, some in the same savegame world, other times I started fresh. Then I tried West Point and that's where I base myself now mostly. I usually make a safe house encompassing a whole city block, 4-6 houses totally barricaded (except doors) with walls connecting them all plus another wall all the way round adjacent to the kerb/sidewalk. Your carpentry skill levels up really fast that way (as long as you can find the skill books you need).

I keep 3 Big Hiking Bags on me at all times: 1st is the BugOutBag on my back with everything I might need to survive away from home for a week or more, 2nd is for secondary slot to carry all food, ammo and other loot to drag back to base with me. The 3rd is just in case I come across a warehouse with a ton more stuff than I can carry in one go, that goes in the primary slot. Of course, you can't carry bags in both hands and fight too, so I only use that bag if I know I can reach home before any zombie sees me and tries to cuddle...

[PintLasher]

I usually play kind of safely. I try to aggro no more than 5 at once and then take them out singly. I start off by looting the nearest houses in a block wide radius, taking 1 of every essential crafting item I find (kitchenware, tools) and as many baseball bats as I can find and all the food and ammo I come across.

I loot 4-5 houses a day until I find 2 baseball bats and then after that it's really easy. Then once settled in I pick a direction and clear a street -> loot the houses -> clear a street -> loot the houses. After the safehouse is nicely stacked I usually begin to look for rarer and riskier loot, mainly tools and skill books. Then after you have skill books to make it to level 3 or 4 I get started using some of those skill books and earning tons of crafting EXP points to spend on the other more important skills when they are reached (At the moment my main character has 38 points to spend but I haven't done enough grinding on agility/combat to spend them!)

 

For loot:

Bag 1 for weapons (always have a spare bat, pistol, sawn off and 3 boxes of ammo for each)

Bag 2 for consumables (medicine, food, drinks)

 

Then to make sorting loot easier I put looted consumables in bag 1 and looted tools and weapons in bag 2. This way I can just remove all the loot easily, knowing that certain types of items don't belong in each bag.

 

I like to be as methodical as possible!

[Foxtrot]

I have not been playing as long as most people.  But I always wanted to try the farming, building thing.  Took me a while and a couple starts where I would have the building supplies but not farming, and vise versa.  Once I finally got it all, I died to a crawler that I just would not target....

 

But on my current game, I am 4 months in, I grow food at lengths, have 3 safe houses set up and multiple B.O.B.'s stashed with a bottle of water, some food, saw,hammer,trowl, box of nails, loaded pistol or shottie with a box of same ammo.  

 

All that said, I am waiting for an A.I. director to make things a little more interesting as well as NPC's.  The game is very fun when trying to get yourself established... but once the walls are up, rain collector barrels are going with a garden, the game slows way down.  All things the devs are working on, and I am glad that they play their game enough to know where a little more love is needed.

[k12314]

Run my ass to the woods as soon as I get an axe and a good bit of food to last me, build a shack deep in the woods, live off of berries and food I farm.

 

Paranoia, people. Paranoia.

[ouyin2000]

I check out the forums when I get home from work. That usually puts me in the mood to play, especially when I see that a new update has been released.

 

I tend to run the same character set up every time. Strong, Lucky, Short Temper, Light Drinker, Brooding, and Prone to Panic. I also setup the game to 6 month water/power, and change the zoms to Fragile and Short memory.

 

Lately I have been trying to set up in West Point in the apartment above the hardware store. Sometimes I'll start in Muldraugh, but I suaully find myself making my way to the same house near the north warehouse. I just like the way it's set up.

 

Where ever I end up, from there the plan is usually the same. Clear the surrounding streets, then go into the house. I try to draw any zomzoms out of the house and onto the street, since I have a bit of cleanliness OCD and I would prefer to not have dead bodies littering inside my house. (I'm excited for when they let you move bodies around).

 

Then I immediately sort out my inventory stuffs. I posted this in another thread, but it's just as relevant here too.

When I set up a new safehouse, I always sort out and organize my inventory right away. That way I don't get into your situation.

 

- Wear a vest or sweater, and keep the other in the beside table

- Stuff blankets and 1 extra Spiffo in the bedside table

- Rip all extra accumulated clothes into bandages and/or sheet ropes

- Bandages and medicine go into the medicine cabinet

- Perishables go into the fridge

- Non perishables go into the kitchen cupboards.

     - Immediately edible food goes into one cupboard (chips, cereal, raman, etc)

     - Some assembly required goes into a different cupboard (coffee, tea bags)

- Kitchen utensils go into another cupboard (kettle, cooking pot, etc) I only keep 1 of each. No need to be carrying around 4 can openers

- Seed packs get their own cupbaord or crate or whatever

- Books go on a bookshelf

- Hand tools another cabinet or crate

- Construction materials another

- Misc junk (flashlights, matches, etc) gets it's own

- Guns and ammo go into yet another storage, usually the closet in the bedroom if it has one

     - Guns are always loaded prior to being stored, and extra ammo is boxed up as I aquire it

 

All other junk (toothpaste, shoes, spoons, etc) gets taken out to the nearest garbage can or just dumped on a random body I find.

 

Once that is done, I loot the surrounding houses systematically. Aquire all food. 1 of each kitchen item, seeds, tools, sheets, etc. At this point I'll usually have skill 1 and/or 2 in carpentry and hopefully an axe/saw/hammer/nails. I barricade my house and the neighbours if I'm planning on fencing in that far around.

 

Loot some more if I'm looking for specific items. Probably hit either a warehouse or a book store, depending on what I need. And probably a food market too before most of the food goes bad.

 

I try to up my carpentry skill to level 4 so I can make some crates (because at this point my existing shelves are pretty much full up). And I complete my perimeter walls. Maybe try my hand at cooking some stuff before it all goes bad.

 

I haven't made it far enough yet to need to rely on farming. I usually either make a mistake on a loot run, or I get bored and just quit for the night.

[SJane3384]

I'll usually decide on an area I want to make a base before I launch the game.  Then I map the best/safest way to get there, and try to fill up on important supplies on the way.  Once I make it to my safehouse, I lure out any zombies so I don't have bodies littering up the place.  Then I sort my inventory into various containers.  Day 2-5 are usually filled with various supply runs, to get materials needed to create a fort.  After that, it's all about building up defenses and turning the game into an agricultural sim. 

[CatGuitarist]

I am a cowardly wimp and as the wimp i am, i will rarely get away from my safehouse to get some food next door (Like i would do, in real life) as this is my very first save and it's going REALLY good, i found an axe and alot of tools in a gigantic house with a forest in the back. My other save is just a guy in a shed, in the forest. Problem is i have no fridge there.

So i would pretty be sedentary in a zombie apocalypse scenario.

[Jonientz]

I rip all of my clothes off when I'm starting, as its July and I want my character to enjoy the sun. Recently I've taken up residence in the warehouse in muldraugh, the one nearest to West Point. I'm completely wreckless in my approach to supply runs, and frequently run out on runs with only a few bottles of water and a nailed baseball bat. Once I aquire all the skill books for carpentry wherever I'm living soon becomes a ridiculous fortress. With many, many rain barrels for late game and plenty of farmland, moved if needed

[Vorhees]

I've only played the Muldraugh map so far.  I usually go for  the 2 story house surrounded by trees for my safehouse.  I loot until I actually find a hammer and saw,and am decently stocked to be able to choose my gear.  I always carry a pot of water in a bag and a bottle or mug on my person just in case I'm thirsy.  On the Muldraugh map.  I usually try to shoot for safeing up in the McCoy Logging Factory.  Haven't played that long to really get into the crafting aspect yet.  But the goal for me is to be safed up with an axes, saws and hammers in McCoy Logging and be self sufficient there.

[mikaelkerensky]

I'm very fond of the north farm in muldraugh. I play sandbox with night of the living dead zombies (insane amount, bad eyes, normal hearing, smell, toughness and strength, fast shamblers) I up the loot to common to make up for ridiculous numbers of zombies). Start with a lucky, strong construction worker who is a light drinker, prone to illness and short tempered. Make my way to the north farm by stages depending on where i spawn (took 5 days the last playthrough). Fortify the place and hit mccoy logging because it's relatively close to the north farm. Only zed i ever have to worry about are on loot runs, the farm is far enough away and the forest around it slows down zed enough that, until horde and metagame mechanics are running like they should, no one bothers me out there. Then rain barrels and a walled in farm. I don't go overboard with defense building, just board up everything, hang a few sheetropes and destroy the stairs. Then I'm golden. Usually end up getting bored and overconfident on supply runs when a 300 plus zombie horde rips my limbs off. Longest I've lasted was a month and a half, but I'm going for 6 months this playthrough.

[Guest]

I live like the OP, as a nomad, traveling all over the map, camping in the wood with my tent and campfire, moving from one location to another. Thats how I lived for those 2 years. I was on the road between Muldraugh, and West Point. It started raining, didn`t put my tent up in time, got a cold, and died. Sad, sad.

[123Imirish]

I like setting up a base, controlling areas of the city, go into badass mode sometimes(take out a pistol and BRING ON DA ZOMBIES) and looting places. Oh, I like making categories for stuff I need. Farming stuff, perishables and non-perishables, building stuff, kitchen stuff, weapons.

that is my obsession, if a bottle of water ends up with the perishables in the fridge there will be war. One time I wasted six bullets on a bathroom cabinet 'cause after a week I found a bloody trowel hiding in there stupid trowel.

I've only played the Muldraugh map so far.  I usually go for  the 2 story house surrounded by trees for my safehouse.  I loot until I actually find a hammer and saw,and am decently stocked to be able to choose my gear.  I always carry a pot of water in a bag and a bottle or mug on my person just in case I'm thirsy.  On the Muldraugh map.  I usually try to shoot for safeing up in the McCoy Logging Factory.  Haven't played that long to really get into the crafting aspect yet.  But the goal for me is to be safed up with an axes, saws and hammers in McCoy Logging and be self sufficient there.

Sledgehammer the majority of the crates so you can reach the ones behind them. Mccoys is a really good base, it was one of my twelve bases until my save got corrupted

[Narnobie111]

When I spawn in I usually cook uncooked foods and fill bowls,pots and cups with water. Then find a big hiking bag and just go on looting runs. Sometimes I clear the zombies out but sometimes I sneak around.

[Vantus]

Playing habits hmmm?...

 

Well one unshakable habit I have is:

Specifically hunt for Industrial containers.

Get the saw.

Get the axe.

 

From there it can go anywhere but typically I try to find somewhere strategic to "hold up".

 

I often set myself little "rules" to spice things up.

 

For example:

• I am not "allowed" to set up base in the same building twice. If I die, I can't re-use the same base, even if I liked it. It prevents me from being too repetitive with my playthroughs.
• I am not allowed to "resume" a world-save if I die. I consider it a bit cheap.
• I sometimes force myself to use whatever starting building I spawn in as my main base. Sometimes I get lucky, sometimes I don't.

I guess one of my other habits is complete and utter OCDing of my containers, especially in Multiplayer.

 

"No no no! Kitchen knives go in the kitchen drawers!"

"That's not right! I have a shelf dedicated to Melee Weapons. Blunt Melee Weapons.. The Sharp ones go over there."

"I've told you a million times! The painkillers are in the bathroom in the medicine cabinet!"

 

Yeah, I'm a barrel of fun at apocalyptic parties.

[mikaelkerensky]

Playing habits hmmm?...

Well one unshakable habit I have is:

Specifically hunt for Industrial containers.

Get the saw.

Get the axe.

From there it can go anywhere but typically I try to find somewhere strategic to "hold up".

I often set myself little "rules" to spice things up.

For example:

• I am not "allowed" to set up base in the same building twice. If I die, I can't re-use the same base, even if I liked it. It prevents me from being too repetitive with my playthroughs.
• I am not allowed to "resume" a world-save if I die. I consider it a bit cheap.
• I sometimes force myself to use whatever starting building I spawn in as my main base. Sometimes I get lucky, sometimes I don't.

I guess one of my other habits is complete and utter OCDing of my containers, especially in Multiplayer.

"No no no! Kitchen knives go in the kitchen drawers!"

"That's not right! I have a shelf dedicated to Melee Weapons. Blunt Melee Weapons.. The Sharp ones go over there."

"I've told you a million times! The painkillers are in the bathroom in the medicine cabinet!"

Yeah, I'm a barrel of fun at apocalyptic parties.

Not hating, because I'm kind of the same way... But imagine if, when npcs are introduced, they started moving stuff around and put items back in the wrong containers... I envision some dead npcs with a journal on their corpse saying "You won't ever put the trowel in the weapon container again now!"

[Vantus]

Not hating, because I'm kind of the same way... But imagine if, when npcs are introduced, they started moving stuff around and put items back in the wrong containers... I envision some dead npcs with a journal on their corpse saying "You won't ever put the trowel in the weapon container again now!"

 

 

You're damn straight!

That'll learn em'! 

 

Nwuhahaha!