Basics
1: When to run and when to fight. There are many audio cues at points in the campaign which indicate that haste is imperative. The maps are not designed to worry about killing every last zombie standing in a corner. Most times hanging around or dawdling equals death and some areas have endless zombies. Remember only one person needs to make it to the safe room to pass the level. (if it comes to that haha)
2: Avoidable problems. Nine times out of ten you don't need to fight the Ogre. Simply save your ammo and health and go around it. Run away from the fat exploding ones before you shoot them. The bile hurts. Turning around and sprinting is always better than backpedaling while you try and reload and get crushed or snatched by a tallboy.
3: Healing. If your team mates are repeatedly calling out "health cabinet here", it likely means you are injured. Check your health bar and if it's you. Look for the white health icon marker thingy, go to the red cabinet and heal yourself. Health cabinets are about the only thing that cure trauma damage effectively. (when your health bar is dark red and cant be fixed with bandages and such)
4: Weapon rarity. The rarity levels of weapons/attachments go white, green, blue, purple, orange. Almost always better to trade up to the next rarity level when found along the act. Try to avoid weapons with the red broken attachments unless a replacement attachment is immediately available. If you are nearing the end of the act with white weapons, you did something wrong.
5: Alarms. Doors that say Authorized Personnel Only, birds and police cars are alarms that call a horde. The doors can be opened without setting off the alarm with a tool kit. Birds can be killed without setting them off with a grenade/Molotov or snuck past. Don't shoot the police cars, better to go melee than to set off the alarm. Accidents do happen, but try not to set these "alarms" off. They are bad news.
Decks
1: A deck for every job. It's good to have many saved decks with different purposes. Melee, shotgun, rifleman, team medic, copper collector, mechanic. When joining a run you may not get the character you wanted or may be joining a team already running 3 shotguns for some stupid reason. It's nice to have a deck to choose that is helpful to the present situation. One deck definitely does not have you covered.
2: A focused deck is a good deck. Sure a bit of everything sounds good, but focusing your deck on a central theme or main skill makes is far more effective. If you want to survive, you're going to need a well oiled, focused deck that greatly increases a specific skill or two.
3: Turning negatives into positives. Cards with a negative affect can also have much higher positive effects. Try applying these cards in builds where the negative doesn't matter. For example a reduced ammo capacity doesn't matter so much on a melee focused build. Or aiming down the sights isn't needed when using a shotgun/smg build. Stack these when possible, 3 cards that take away your ability to aim down the sights still only take the ability away once.
4: If you aren't nearly invulnerable on recruit. You're doing something wrong with your deck build. There are many good guides with more than reasonable deck builds available on Steam, so I wont get into all that. But if you cant make it through the first or second act on recruit, either your deck is terrible or you got three terrible players and couldn't drag them through. haha.
5: Corruption cards. Always pick the ones the give bonus copper and such or the ones that say Finale (especially on recruit). They have the least negative impact/most reward. If you keep picking the ones with skulls, that's why you are dying or getting pounced by a million sleepers.
Team Work
1: Follow the leader. If someone has beaten the campaign and clearly knows what to do, follow them and listen to their advice. Tons of people of have made it through the campaign now and you can too.
2: Stick together. Do not get too far behind or ahead. One special infected with a grab move can end you. You don't need to search every single room, search less if everyone is well supplied and in good health, more if you're hurt and out of grenades. Letting people know you need to stop to heal or are in need of ammo is a good thing. The longer you take to get through a map, the more times you will ultimately be attacked and expend health and ammo.
3: Weapon Variety. Try not to have your entire team running shotguns, smgs ect. Creates ammo problems and reduces team effectiveness. Let your rifleman/sniper pick off the special infected from afar while your melee/shotgunner keeps the waves of commons at bay.
4: Communication. A great team (one that can make it through veteran and above) plays together regularly and all use mics. Call outs can save you from special infected and promote a generally well equipped team. Discussing what decks everyone will be using in advance is also an advantage.
5: Specialists. A good team will be players that have diverse specialization between them. Say Holly on a melee build, Evangelo on a shotgun build, Doc on a medic build with a minor in smg/rifle and Hoffman on a mechanic/team support build with a minor in rifle/sniper. Holly and Evangelo will lead and handle the majority of common infected, while Doc and Hoffman focus on special infected from the rear. Doesn't necessarily have to be exactly that, but you get the idea. A team like this has a way better chance of surviving.
Guide by Shady 8 Rounds