How boring is a day-1 restart? (possible minor end-game spoilers)

[Nerdygamer1]

So, I've made it pretty far in the game, I'd say. Day 46, up to Gebura suppression, and a few pieces of Aleph-level gear under the belt. Tipereth's suppression took a heavy toll on my agent count. I have a couple hundred LOB points squirreled away, but the thought of rebuilding everyone is a little bit daunting. Each agent was sort of built for a specific thing: one might have had a weapon/armor combo to suppress a specific abnormality, while another might have been built to keep panicking agents in check. This, in turn dictated what skills I had them train and sort of guided the day's work.

I've read a few times that restarting from day 1 was kind of unavoidable, so was considering doing so in order to start with a fresh slate - to only have a couple agents to focus on rather than the overwhelming 40+ I have now. I've read that you keep all your EGO armor and weapons when restarting. How boring is day one when you can punt Void Dream across the facility with Mimicry or [Censored]? Will there be no meltdowns for most of the game, since I've completed most of the cores' suppression? Will I keep my bullet hotbar, so the first dusk ordeal is as simple as calling in a rabbit protocol?

[Guardsman Fallout]

I THINK [KEYWORD], you keep everything but abnormalities and employees.

[Nerdygamer1]

Originally posted by Guardsman Fallout:

I THINK [KEYWORD], you keep everything but abnormalities and employees.

Right, and my concern is that the first 20 - 30 days of the game are going to be a mind-numbingly boring cake walk because I've kept all my high-level EGO gear and am going to be using them to deal with Zayin through HE level abnormalities. I didn't find my first HE-level abnormality until I opened my third department. So I guess I should have been more clear with my initial question: Will the difficulty curve drop straight back down through the floor, or will it still remain challenging?

[CarThief]

Yeah it gets pretty easy redoing the early days, and should you gather some more ALEPH gear during that time period, then things may get even a smidge easier. Barring maybe some instance where you pick a nasty ALEPH that'll get in the way of future core supressions and other things.

So, uh, yeah...
-You keep all your upgrades, such as core supression rewards (like Netzach's heal-everywhere, Hod's level-3-hires (which is friggin' amazing), etc.

-This includes the meltdown-immunity for those departments that have had a succesful core supression. (Though, some core supressions disable the meltdown-immunity. Also fun fact: During a core supression the department being supressed is always immune to meltdowns.)

-Yeah, you also keep the Rabbit team and any researched Bullets.
-LOB points and employees are lost, and you have to start anew with those (or if you go back to the last checkpoint, they'll be whatever they where at the time that checkpoint save was made).

-Abnormality information and E.G.O gear also is kept. Though if you really wanna start fresh, you could just suicide some employees who have E.G.O gear or refrain from using it. Killing some employees mid-game and then choosing to load the previous memory repository/checkpoint will revive the agents, but as the game saves everything as-is the moment you click memory repository, any lost E.G.O is lost, and gained E.G.O/information will be retained as you go back.

---

So uh, yeah. That part's easy. But don't mistake the upcoming core supressions as an easy thing to undertake. And even if you do all core supressions, days 46+ will be pretty tough, if not hellish (depending on how prepared you are). Day 49 in particular is pure unadulterated suffering and cruelty.

So the game has plenty of challanges to still give you (and if you're insane, you can try to kill WN for his on-death weapon which only drops if he's killed normally, or a certain combined bird is also a reasonable challange with a good gear reward).

Though if you do want a fresh start, you are able to press the Lobotomy icon in the main menu to wipe your safe and start on day 1, with everything wiped/gone. But that's kinda the nuclear option for a full restart, you don't even retain the abnormality info.
(Handy for corrupted saves sometimes, though.)

Oh, and you may have noticed, but day 46 is pretty much the point of no return. From thereon, you'll be facing days 46-50, and if you didn't do all the core supressions, you cannot finish it. Might be good practice, though. So if you got any unfinished business in the future, don't get to day 46 and instead load a checkpoint at the start of day 45 or sooner.

[Nerdygamer1]

That's a fantastically in-depth answer; thank you so much! Honestly, I'm genuinely considering the fresh start option. My current playthrough, I really dragged my feet when it came to the core suppressions. I just couldn't complete Malkuth's mission to beat an ordeal of dusk because I was going about it completely wrong and didn't have very many opportunities to get practice in.

At least this way, I'll be able to discover the other lower-level abnormalities more organically.

[CarThief]

If you mean use the full-save-deletion button, uh, be aware this deletes EVERYTHING, even progress on missions, core supressions, etc. Any method of progress is removed this way, it's litterally like deleting your save file. So... Just so you know.

Personally, i don't see much use for it barring technical problems, since you can delete it from the save file but not from your own memory, it'd involve repeating a lot. (And you kinda need some benefits to properly take on the lowest level of core supressions and the last days.)

Unless of course you're just starting once more for a better experience, i guess. Pretty hard to do all the supressions in one playthrough, i must add. I recall you had to zig-zag progress between Hokma and Binah's departments, one point here this day, then one point there the next day, so you're able to use the memory repository to do both in one playthrough just before hitting day 46+.
(And if that somehow fails anyway, well, worst case scenario, you can quickly steamroll through the game to do the other supression, and try days 46+.)

One problem though, now i remember... The uh, "true ending" requires like, 100% abnormality information (some exceptions, like the joke one, and the "DLC" ones that come in round containers during selection, and maybe others). After that, you gotta beat the final day again.

[Nerdygamer1]

Originally posted by CarThief:

[...]

One problem though, now i remember... The uh, "true ending" requires like, 100% abnormality information (some exceptions, like the joke one, and the "DLC" ones that come in round containers during selection, and maybe others). After that, you gotta beat the final day again.

Oh my god, is that why there are round and square containers? That was bugging the everloving ♥♥♥♥♥ out of me.

I did go ahead and do a full-save-delete and I have no regrets on day nine. I'll definitely have to play through a third time to unlock information on old abnormalities, but I'm okay with that.

[CarThief]

Yeah it's weird, but that's why they're in round containers. Dunno why. DLC's are always kinda harder too, then the regular abnormalities (i guess the community found the regular ones too easy - i kinda agree with them on that, admittedly).

For 100% abnormality codex i'd say just do every one of em you find, DLC's (they offer good WAW/ALEPH gear anyway), even WN (you don't have to fight him for his weapon), the Button (for safety, to prevent possible gear-loss, just repeatedly press it while in the preperation screen before you start the day and work on abnormalities), every tool, and even the joke bald-is-awesome one.

Well, atleast with a save reset you get to redo some core supressions, those are good fun. Kinda wish we could replay them at our leisure, heh...

[winter wave]

"dlc" anomalies are backer anomalies

[darksol92]

The main advantage to doing a Day 1 restart instead of a total wipe is the ability to better plan your facility the next time. I would recommend getting ALMOST to the point of no-return and starting over while doing as many core suppressions as possible that way you can better plan for what other goals you have yet to achieve.
1.) Aiming for Gebura? You may want Little Red and Der Freischutz so you can request their help to fight her. (Or you may be going for the cheese factory approach)
2.) Dealing with Chesed? This allows you to spread the damage types as much as possible so that you can at least have a few types to work on!
3.) Trying Binah? You might want to get as many Teth, Zayin, and He class ones that don't escape as possible in addition to as much Aleph grade equipment as possible.
4.) Hokma? Avoid anything that requires constant attention and minimize escape risk or possession risk abnormalities.
5.) You can either arrange to have alephs in the same department or you can spread them out.
6.) Still doing missions for Gebura? You can make better educated picks on which abnormalities will be usable to fulfill the missions. (Basically you need a lot of escaping types)
7.) Really hate an abnormality? Since you had it in the last playthrough and did work on it in the selection screen you'll see it's actual name instead of the numbers and letters... hence you can avoid it like it has the plague.
Keeping the equipment is nice as is Hod's bonus of all employees start with level 3 in everything, but this doesn't make the game THAT much easier. Sure TETHs and HEs are basically harmless but you still face any instant-death threats for having low/high stats and pale damage is STILL pale damage.