I already sympathize with Nikki. If I didn't like women who had shitty taste in men how would I justify them dating me?
Honestly, I'm primarily focusing on timeline/early relationship issues. I want to put a little more emphasis on the idea that she and the MC always had a work friendship and nothing more, because he was her boss, and that put them both in this weird friendship limbo where they couldn't really hang out outside of work. And there's a two month gap between the MC leaving his job and Nicki contacting him, which was meant to be more about the MC being evasive, since he's hiding his wealth, than Nicki failing to reach out.
I think addressing those in the text, as well as a few other things, would do something to address why Nicki and the MC never really tried to date, among other things.
The Nicki problem:
- MC has had a crush on her for years but she dates someone else (basic hentai NTR setup)
- She comes to the MC after her shithead boyfriend fucks up and asks for money
- She gets the money and ghosts the MC for 3 months
- She comes back looking like a cheap whore
there is nothing redeemable about her.
Points three and four will be elaborated on in Chapter 3, so I'm not getting into those.
Regarding your first point - part of the MC's journey is the fact that he as no self-confidence at the beginning of the game. He feels old, stuck in a miserable low-paying job, and he has to watch the girl he has a crush on get treated like garbage by her boyfriend. I get that it's not a
fun way to start the game necessarily, but it's meant to draw a contrast with where he is post-Nicki, in Chapter Two. He's suddenly beloved by his community, pretty girls want to talk to him, and he's basically free to act with impunity in his daily life, for good or ill. I don't think you can necessarily appreciate where he is, without seeing where he came from.
Regarding your second point - fair enough! Honestly, the more popular choice would have been to have the MC sense that her behavior is a little off all night, and she finally breaks down and tells him that Brent's fucked up their lives, not knowing the MC has the potential to help. That'd make the good route a little more straightforward, and the evil route a little more evil.
But, I also think that level of complication/moral complication in their relationship is compelling. If Nicki was a perfect good girl, it'd make choosing to help an easy decision, and the evil route would be purely malicious, rather than a wounded guy lashing out. As it is now, the MC kind of has to let go of his own insecurities and resentment when he chooses to help her, or give into them.
I might try to split the difference a little on that plot point, when it comes time to redo Chapter One, if I can figure out how to do it effectively.
Anywhodles, that's all for now. I did decide to redo Nicki's tats a little bit. The flowery ones were a little lower-res and clashed with the henna style, so I just dropped them and replaced them with more henna tats. I also dropped the under-boob tattoo, since it kind of messed with what the tattoos mean,
thematically. I'll redo the few images at the end of Chapter Two for the next release.