Survival guide for new players.

[Arnie (DayZ) 21]

Right alot of new players seem to post this game is too hard, its hard, yes too hard. No. Don't get me wrong I am in no way an expert but I do think I'm good at the initial part of the game. Surviving and getting equipped. To give some truth to that claim I can tell you that the only time i died fast was on the first character i had, all my other ones have made it at least past the 3 day mark. So how do you do it.

1. survival. You are good when you spawn your food and health are green, you have bandages. Your biggest problem at this point are other players. The coastline and the big cities along it are either going to be full with people who don't have anything. They are useless to you. People who have nothing to lose and play this game like an fps, those are even worse. And players who are well equipped and want to kill stuff. That groups is the worst of them all at this point so get away from the coast go north.

How to go north.

- log in, look at the bottom right corner of your screen it gives you your location, it pops up fast so if you missed it, relog so you get to see it again.

- Find an online dayz map, find your aproximate location

- Orientate yourself you should see the ocean. For example if you spawned at kamyshovo and put your back to the ocean you are facing north.

- Once you have a facing look at the shadows. If you are facing N and the shadows are to your right the sun is in the west. More importantly you now always can find N again by using your shadow.

- Head north.

2. Getting equiped

- using your new makeshift way of orientation and the online map you should roughly be able to tell where you are going.

- If you come past barns that are open on both ends, check them out. Barns can have food, drinks and weapons like the lee enfield, the shotgun or the winchester.

- Keep going N till you cross a road, if you hit a road fairly fast keep going till you cross a second road or powerlines. Reason i'm saying to cross 2 roads or a road and powerlines is that you want to be far enough landinwards and not paralell to the coast when you make your way east or west.

- You should now be far enough N to have dodged the worst of the player killing.

- follow the road or the powerlines, they always lead to a built up area.

- read the sign of the village

- locate yourself on the online map and try to plan your route to medium / high value agricultural targets especially if you havent found any yet.(more about that later)

- Get going your food and water are ticking away.

3. Looting and zombies.

- when you are unarmed and in doubt, crawl.

- if a zombie does agro you leg it there are two ways to get rid of em. Either go up a steep hill ( you have to zig zag there to keep running, zombies will go up in a straight line making it impossible for them to run ) or lose em in a building. Buildings with only one entrance are suicide traps at this point in the game.

- NEVER loot buildings with only one way in or out unless you have a gun

- Barns are your best target in the beginning of the game.

- If you see zombies in the middle of nowhere it will usually mean there is a deerstand around, those are also fairly safe to loot and they sometims get you a nice gun or a map early on in the game.

4. Combat

you should have some kind of boomstick if you are still alive at this point. Don't use it unless you have to

Shooting draws zombies and shooting draws other players. People in this game do one of two things when they hear shooting. They move towards the gunfire or they move away from it. Trust me, the ones moving towards you probably do not do it because they are short one guy to play poker with.

- the louder the gun the more agro range, firing a lee enfield at a zombie will bring the entire town down on you

- do NOT fight zombies outside unless you have to.

-if you do have to fight zombies outside and they get ontop of you, run backwards while facing them and take them on one by one. Zombies have to stop to hit you. So what happens is they run upto you, and stop to hit you. You move back, Zombie has to run again, stop, run stop run stop. If you do it right you will avoid alot of hits.

- Run into a house or a barn, zombies can't run inside and you can pick them off as they enter

- Stand in the middle of the room, some zombies hit through walls.

- Use your pistol if you have it and go for headshots unless you are using the .45 1911 or the revolver.

5. What next.

You should have a few cans to drink now along with some food and you should be armed. Time to upgrade your equipment

- Next targets:

High priority: residential low/med/high value and supermarkets to get a bigger backpack, bandages, painkillers, map, compass, matches, waterbottles,more food, etc.

Medium Priority: Deer stands, military camps, helicopter crashes to get better weapons. Medical facilities for med supplies.

Low Priority: Stary sobor area / airfields (very high chance of dying there to other players.

Good luck :)

Edited July 16, 2012 by Arnie

[Arnie (DayZ) 21]

Damn this place is active, already on page 3 ! I know its not nice to bump your own posts but someone just told me they had trouble finding it so here goes.

Bump

Sorry !

[[email protected] 8]

And stay away from the castle ruins! Some dickhead dumped a clip from an AK to me as I was checking my inventory on top.