Hello,
I'm feeling overwhelmed after the release of the new chapter, and I still haven't written the other ones, so I can't give a clear answer.
A few players have already brought to my attention the MC's crying after Vita's death, and there are already conditions and branches in which she acts differently depending on "VitaApproval" and alignment. Mainly, a Good MC will be the most stressed, as well as an MC that had a good relationship with Vita. Some players like her a lot, so I didn't want to underplay it, I felt like that would be worse. Now, it's very difficult for the "game" (my code) to read a player's mind, so I made it so in order to pass a relationship check, you only need to get around 70% of that character's relationship points. Then the game will "think" you liked Vita. Tactful Evil may be particularly difficult, since the MC could be lying. It's still in early access, so it's something I could take a closer look at. Maybe I'll need to assign some additional variables to some choices to indicate you actually hated Vita and make that a priority. In any case, I wanted the MC to be shocked and at least be scared because she is a demonheart as well, so she could be looking at the death from that perspective - "it could be me."
Some other things, as you said, "things have to happen" for the story to progress and have the intended events and twists. Including meaningful choices that branch the story right away would make my work impossible - if it branches into 16 completely different scenarios, it would take me 16 years to finish. So I intend to leave the most meaningful choices (which will make the MC feel more competent) for the end.