Three points that will change the gameplay and replayability.

[SabinSnake PS5#1]

I haven't been playing this game for long. I like its potential and flexibility. The in-game settings are set to maximum difficulty from the start—I haven't even tried the others. The point here isn’t to forbid doing something, but to limit stake spam and diversify interaction with the world. We don’t complete trader quests because they introduce significant imbalance; in the end, you become not a survivor but a hoarder.
It would be different if the trader simply shared interesting rumors with the player about locations in the style of: "I heard that workbenches/weapons/electronics were delivered to that warehouse," and so on.
As for stakes, a limitation is needed, but not an explicit one—for example, making their placement take longer, like an upgrade, 3–5 seconds. This wouldn’t hurt building and would reduce spam. People instantly chop down a tree and fill hordes with stakes, getting loot without any effort. But later, they either hide in a bunker or lose because all that time they weren’t really playing the game but trying to outsmart it.

But in a real life zombie apocalypse scenario, you would be a hoarder, cause it would be every man for himself then and people would more than likely kill eachother for food, water, medicine and weapons and ammo to survive. Not sure if The Walking Dead is a good example of how society would be like in a real life zombie apocalyptic situation, but i'm sure it's pretty dam close.
Edit: If you want the game to be more challenging, get rid of airdrops! In an apocalyptic situation, there wouldn't be any airdrops, period. Unless somehow Arizona is the only state in the entire US that's affected by zombies and is somehow conveniently quarantined from other states around it (which makes no sense).

 

[Suxar]

But in a real life zombie apocalypse scenario, you would be a hoarder, cause it would be every man for himself then and people would more than likely kill eachother for food, water, medicine and weapons and ammo to survive. Not sure if The Walking Dead is a good example of how society would be like in a real life zombie apocalyptic situation, but i'm sure it's pretty dam close.

In real life, the corpses would rot within a year. And in the cold season they would simply turn into ice sculptures that you could just have fun smashing with a bat. As for the survivors, the gangs and marauders will not live long, a year, maximum three, and they will either have slaves or die of hunger.

You should not evaluate the game from the point of view of real life.