Best Starter Decisions in 7 Days to Die: Skills, Quests, and First Base

You gain one skill point per character level, up to level 300, and attributes cost more as they rise: levels 2 to 5 cost one point each, levels 6 to 8 cost two each, and levels 9 to 10 cost three each. Taking one attribute from 1 to 10 costs 16 points before you buy a single perk in it. That cost curve is the whole argument against spreading points everywhere at the start: a scattered character stays below the Mastery ranks at attribute levels 6 to 10, where the most distinctive effects live.

Choose one of the five attributes as your combat home. Strength gives clubs, sledgehammers, and shotguns, plus mining and carrying capacity. Perception gives rifles, spears, and explosives. Fortitude gives fists, machine guns, and the most health. Agility gives bows and crossbows, handguns, and knives, with the best mobility. Intellect gives stun batons and robotic weapons, plus crafting and trading support. For most first characters, Strength is the most forgiving, because a club is stamina-efficient, mining feeds everything else, and Pack Mule eases the inventory pressure every beginner feels.

Then take the general perks anyone can use, regardless of attribute: Pack Mule for carry slots, Lucky Looter for better loot, Master Chef for cheaper and faster cooking, and Living Off The Land for bigger harvests. In the current game these are general perks, not attribute perks, so you no longer need to choose an attribute just to unlock them. A useful early pattern is one point in your main weapon perk, one point in Pack Mule, and then steady progress in your chosen attribute, rather than one point in five different trees.

If you change your mind, traders sell Grandpa's Fergit'n Elixir, which refunds spent skill points. It does not un-read books or magazines, and it does not reset crafting skills, so a respec fixes your perk allocation, not your whole character history. Knowing that safety net exists should make your first choice calmer, not careless: pick a direction, play it for a week, and only respec when you know what you actually disliked.

Traders are the most reliable early progression route in the game, and that reliability is also their trap. Quests pay dukes, experience, and rewards, reveal the map around the trader, and push you into buildings you might otherwise avoid. For a new player, that structure is genuinely helpful: it answers the daily question of where to go next, and it keeps your loot and experience moving while you learn combat and building.

The trap is letting quests decide everything. If every day is a trader quest, you will postpone base work, farming, and vehicle progress until a blood moon exposes the gap. A healthier pattern is one or two quests per day in the first week, with base upgrades and resource gathering protected as a daily block, not squeezed into whatever time remains. Take the quest rewards that fit your build, sell what does not, and use the trader as a shop and a compass, not as a boss who owns your calendar.

Quest tiers matter too. Start with the easiest tiers near your trader and let higher tiers wait until your weapons, armour, and healing can handle larger buildings and tougher enemies. A quest is not failed ambition if you postpone it: it is still there when you are stronger, and clearing it then pays better loot for the same effort.

Your first base should be near a trader, near water and wood, and near loot you can clear safely, in that order. Trader distance is the most underrated factor for beginners, because you will travel to the trader constantly for quests, buying, and selling, and every long trip is time not spent building or looting. A base ten minutes from the trader feels fine on day one and feels like a tax by day fourteen.

Biome choice is the second filter. The Forest biome is the standard beginner recommendation: moderate enemies, plentiful wood, and manageable temperatures. Harsher biomes offer better loot and tougher enemies, but they also demand protective gear and preparation a new player does not yet have. Starting in the Forest, then pushing into harder biomes with gear and a vehicle, is a smoother curve than starting hard and learning everything under pressure.

The third filter is terrain and structure. Flat ground near a road is easier to build on and easier to defend than a steep hillside, and a small, sturdy point of interest with good supports beats a sprawling ruin with a beautiful view. Check the roof, the supports, and the approach routes before you move in: zombies will find the weak side you ignored, so choose a place whose weak side you can actually reinforce.

Taking over an existing point of interest is almost always the better first-week decision. It gives you walls, a roof, and a recognisable layout on day one, and your early work is reinforcement rather than construction. The cost is compromise: the layout was not designed for your funnel, some rooms are wasted, and a quest can reset a building you have claimed, so never build your only storage inside a quest-target building without understanding that risk.

Building from scratch is the better second-base decision, once you know how zombies path, how much material a real wall costs, and where your trader route runs. A purpose-built horde base with a single funnel, a fallback exit, and sacrificial outer layers is stronger than any converted house, but it is also a project that eats the first week if you start it too early. Convert first, learn the horde, then build deliberately.

Solo players should bias toward safety and self-sufficiency: Strength or Fortitude for survivability, a compact base near one trader, and quests at a pace that leaves time for building. You cannot be in two places at once, so a base that defends itself through layout matters more than a base that needs three people shouting warnings. Co-op groups can split the decisions: one player pushes the combat tree, another pushes Intellect for crafting and vehicles, and a third pushes farming and cooking through general perks, while everyone still takes Pack Mule and Lucky Looter.

In co-op, agree on the base location together before anyone builds, because moving a shared base is far more expensive than moving a solo one. Agree on loot rules early too: shared storage for building materials and ammunition, personal storage for weapons and armour you are actively using, and a rule for who repairs what after a horde night. Most co-op arguments in this game are not about zombies, they are about unspoken storage rules.

Postpone the perfect base, the perfect weapon, and the hardest biome. Postpone large farming plots until you have Living Off The Land and a safe water source, because a big farm you cannot defend or water is a chore, not an asset. Postpone vehicle ambition beyond a bicycle until you have the magazines and materials to maintain it, and postpone high-tier quest buildings until your healing and armour can absorb a mistake. Postponing is not falling behind: in a game with a 300-level cap and no time limit on most goals, the player who survives to use their gear beats the player who rushed to own it.

Before your first blood moon, you should be able to answer these questions without hesitating. What is your combat attribute? Which general perks have you taken? Which trader are you based near, and how long does the trip take? Where is your horde fighting position, and where is your fallback? What did you postpone, and why? If any answer is vague, that vagueness is your next task, and it is cheaper to fix now than during a red sky.