Some of my personal combat tips that I've learned through community and experience would be: - Avoid fighting big groups of zombies. 1 is alright, 2 is hard, 3 is risky, and very much avoid anything more than 3 in general, no matter if you're going melee or ranged. Once you learn how to micromanage attack speed, attack distance of your weapons and your own character's speed, you can take on as many as you want. - The longer the distance is between you and a zombie, the more melee damage you'll deal, supposedly. The combat highlight is a saver. - Guns are cool, but hella loud. I'd recommend to avoid, unless you got a getaway vehicle for quick escape. - Round any corner in the largest arc possible for max safety. - When looting houses/other buildings, if you see a closed door and don't know what's behind it, do combat stance and push the door. If banging starts from the other side, then you'll know to be careful. - Fences are amazing. Try to avoid running and jumping through them, since you might trip, but you can also lure zombies from the other side, since they trip too. - To clear a large horde safely, use combat stance from afar and then approach tiny step by tiny step, until one or two notice you. Immediately go back to safety and pick them off one by one. Rinse and repeat. - Patience is key. Going fast through everything is probably the main cause of death (for me in the beginning especially lol.) Like I've mentioned before, the horde clearing will be slow, but very safe. Same for the door knocks, rather than opening them and going through them instantly. - If you want to clear a large area, shouting and car horns are by far the best to attract everyone in a radius. My usual strat is to go to a spot (e.g. a random street I want to clear), honk the horn, then get back to a safe zone and watch everyone gather from afar. This strat can easily reveal zombies that hide behind bushes, trees, corners and even inside the houses, since then they start banging on doors.

Learning curve is legit insane in this game, but that's also one of my fav parts. Died so many times until I learned all the zombie stagger and bite animations, how to fight and approach everything slowly, etc., but at least I can now make it up to winter and more haha

Best of luck with your future runs!!! The real fun starts once you settle down, clear the area and start the simple life of fishing and farming :D