I kinda like Tovan. That said, I can understand that the way some of his dialog was written could be annoying. I know I find it mildly annoying that any member of the crew would tell the captain what is to happen next, even if it was meant to guide the player. I'd prefer the crew member used a "respectfully suggest, sir..." But its not a deal breaker with me.
Is it the dialog that is ticking people off? Or is it his attributes? If the dialog or attributes were improved, would it be enough?
I'm of the opinion that what should have happened (what could happen?) is that at the moment of a best friend BOFF joining, the game pause and the player be given a limited creation option: male/female, 2 voice choices per gender, visual appearance settings, and limited selection of BOFF abilities. If he/she will stay with you all the way, it makes it more comfortable. When the BFF BOFF is planetside with you, one of the other voices, along with a game-generated appearance, broadcasts from the ship as a different character.
He becomes irrelevant once you have completed the story missions, making adjustments to dialog pointless. His traits aren't desirable so he is wasting a space on the roster.
It would be a different story if we had SWTOR like companions, but in STO he's just a waste of space due to the lack of customization.
I don't get why Cryptic made him so essential. Even in the story, it's not made clear why, when he seems to know so much, he doesn't assume command, or is offered a command in the Republic (other than the fairly obvious point that he's a plot device and our characters are needed for the game, but you get what I mean.)
Why couldn't Tovan Khev have been an old man who was unable to fight, but could advise from the sidelines, or be involved in the relevant missions.
I really don't get why the Romulan campaign features him the way it does, because the Klingon campaign, released on the VERY SAME DAY, has dealt with this problem perfectly.
With regards to the plot - Tovan and K'mtar fulfill the same role (right down to oversharing about their personal lives), but K'mtar is never a member of your crew. He just quietly dies when he's no longer needed.
If the arguement to keep Tovan on the ship is because he is essential in certain quests, that's ignored for Klingons, if you replay the mission at Sirella's house after K'mtar dies, he's miraculously resurrected and at your side again.
I am quite happy to be given a purple BOFF to start with, but I don't get why he can't be customised, when everything else can.
Also - and I am really letting my inner trekker out of the box here to finish this rant - Tovan Khev - is that a Romulan name? Bajoran or Cardassian maybe, but I just can't imagine Commander Khev facing down Captain Picard.
I assume Tovan is a civilian and nothing more. Perhaps smarter than your average civilian. So in a perfect world Tovan would never face Picard, he would have been relaxing on Romulas. Fate however steps in and Tovan is out for revenge following you. I'm assuming that your character has actual training where Tovan doesnt. Tovan is also loyal to you and perhaps doesn't have any desire for his own command.
Personally I love Tovan and thought it was an awesome idea to have him in the game. I didnt like the way the KDF story went. Maybe giving Tovan some better abilities would be great. I also think by the time you reach level 50 you have enough bridge officer slots that it isn't game ruining for Tovan to still be around.
Hey, Tovan's my buddy. We used to hang out on Virinat together. And after the Tal Shiar and Elachi hit the place, we escaped together. He's been there the whole time, through thick and thin, and after the Installation 18 incident, he even stopped whining about his sister!
Dude's riding shotgun with me until the Republic takes my warbird away...
(And you're right - in-story, Tovan Khev was never part of the Imperial fleet. He was just a tech on Virinat, and would have lived his entire life without ever so much as leaving the settlement if Hakeev hadn't had other plans.)
I've come to think the devs will never let you get rid of him. Because at the least, to get around him you have to go and get additional officer slots on a character --> more money for cryptic.
Also - and I am really letting my inner trekker out of the box here to finish this rant - Tovan Khev - is that a Romulan name? Bajoran or Cardassian maybe, but I just can't imagine Commander Khev facing down Captain Picard.
What about Captain Picard v Chicken Khev. Let me tell you, you don't want to get between a Frenchman and anything garlic.
On topic...
I like that we get these boffs as part of the story. Feels a bit more complete than the Federation experience which rewards random'ish boffs at certain levels. Personally I'm inclined to keep them even with the boff limit and their imperfect traits. I'd feel a bit nasty dismissing them.
I suspect the problem is mission replays. While Tovan is only essential up to a certain point in the story, with mission replay allowing us to revisit those earlier missions getting rid of him could be problematic.
What about Captain Picard v Chicken Khev. Let me tell you, you don't want to get between a Frenchman and anything garlic.
On topic...
I like that we get these boffs as part of the story. Feels a bit more complete than the Federation experience which rewards random'ish boffs at certain levels. Personally I'm inclined to keep them even with the boff limit and their imperfect traits. I'd feel a bit nasty dismissing them.
I suspect the problem is mission replays. While Tovan is only essential up to a certain point in the story, with mission replay allowing us to revisit those earlier missions getting rid of him could be problematic.
I imagine the people who complain about not being able to remove him would also complain that those missions still act like he is there. What this means is that until there is a work around there is little reason to allow Tovan to be dismissed.
He has no part of my characters backstory. He muscles his way, unwanted, into my characters' story progression. He has the gall to order me, his Commander, around. He won't go away, even when I leave him on the ship, scrubbing out the latrines with a toothbrush (his own). You can't edit his name (seriously, just give me the ability to do that). He needs to die in a singularity core implosion.
Too bad I couldn't leave him behind on the Elachi space station. They would have committed mass suicide to escape his unending whining, saving me the bother of having to fight the Battle of New Romulus. Plus, the idea of him being trapped forever on an abandoned space station in subspace that no one can ever get to seems strangely appropriate for all the annoyances Tovan Khev has been responsible for in my Romulan games.
If you like him, that's fine, carry on using him. I hate everything about him, but I have no way to make him go away. I don't need premade BOFFs to interact with, I have my imagination for that, and all my other STO characters got along perfectly well with their crews of randomly generated BOFFs that I gradually created my own backstories for.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
This character is why I don't play my Romulan any more. Tovan Khev is NOT my BFF! Get him off my bridge!
Okay I am failing to see the whole storyline side of this subject. It's fine to have a storyline within an MMO but seriously? A storyline about one of your crew members? And an annoying crew member at that... When did creators get together and decide," hey they want storylines so we will give them one not about themselves going from a nobody to captaining their own ships but we will give them one about a no for good nothing npc who likes to butt in and take over the players ship whenever he gets an itch in his pixel pants". "And better yet we will make sure when they go to change his name they can't and just for good measures when they go to customize him we will make sure he has some special looking gear that only he can wear and TRIBBLE the players they won't get a chance to even have this type stuff because we will name it after him".
Lol seriously Crpytic if you are going to introduce players to a storyline atleast make the storyline about the player not some npc. Players like to be added to the game not sitting on the sideline talking about some pixel npc's sister and her troubles.
Okay, Shadow, beyond the mission string, what storyline can you come up with that will encompass both my first Rom toon (a former Imperial Fleet officer who defected after discovering Hakeev's schemes early on and almost being assassinated, and wound up on Virinat at D'Vex's invitation) and my second (a young woman who grew up on Virinat, and is only in command of a Warbird now because since the devastation of her homeworld it's all she has left)?
You can write a story about an NPC, because you can control an NPC's background. Cryptic can't even ensure your Romulan toon is in fact even a Romulan (you could be a Reman, or even a self-defined Alien of some sort).
Okay I am failing to see the whole storyline side of this subject. It's fine to have a storyline within an MMO but seriously? A storyline about one of your crew members? And an annoying crew member at that... When did creators get together and decide," hey they want storylines so we will give them one not about themselves going from a nobody to captaining their own ships but we will give them one about a no for good nothing npc who likes to butt in and take over the players ship whenever he gets an itch in his pixel pants". "And better yet we will make sure when they go to change his name they can't and just for good measures when they go to customize him we will make sure he has some special looking gear that only he can wear and TRIBBLE the players they won't get a chance to even have this type stuff because we will name it after him".
Lol seriously Crpytic if you are going to introduce players to a storyline atleast make the storyline about the player not some npc. Players like to be added to the game not sitting on the sideline talking about some pixel npc's sister and her troubles.
SWTOR made really awesome companions, they give you missions and you can romance them.
SWTOR made really awesome companions, they give you missions and you can romance them.
It's also a system that introduced Malavai Quinn and other hated companions you just. can't. get. rid. of. plus poor customization. Every system has its flaws.
At least they finally fixed the department heads bug so he won't reslot himself anymore. Even as somebody who doesn't have a Rom, it's really nice to see my boffs not playing musical chairs anymore.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Storyline is over and we rescued the sister... let me ditch him and swap him with his sister instead. or at the very least... let me mute him. He takes up a Bridge Officer slot... not a big issue (well still an issue) if you have a Lifetime sub, but for F2P folks it totally sucks that he takes up a slot. These Bridge Officers you can NOT fire/discharge should not be counted.
Cryptic could make an episode.
An episode where in the end, an optional ending would be to kill Thovan horribly off in a gruesome, most traumatic way. Death by Eppoh. Where Thovan is sent out to tag them, but ends up being roflstomped and tickled to death.
That being said I do think we should be given a free extra BOFF slot to accomadate him.
This. Tovan hasn't really bothered me that much. Just as FTP player (that status won't change for a long time, no matter how much I might wish differently.)
So, perhaps an extra BOFF slot to make up for sticking Tovan in there with Gorilla Glue?
Now a LTS and loving it.
Just because you spend money on this game, it does not entitle you to be a jerk if things don't go your way.
I have come to the conclusion that I have a memory like Etch-A-Sketch. I shake my head and forget everything.
Eh, I think Tovan's more of a symbol of everything wrong with the tone of the Romulan faction more than anything else that bugs me. Having a free officer with his skills right from the start is nice. Sure, not being able to dismiss him is kinda annoying-but what really bugs me the most about playing Romulan at the moment is how seriously un-romulan everything is. And everything that comes out of Tovan's mouth is a constant reminder of that. The ability to get rid of him would be a welcome indication that Cryptic is making baby steps towards making the Romulan faction Romulan in more ways than pointy ears and green ships IMO.
People keep saying that. I don't get it. What is not Romulan about the Romulan Republic?
Re-watch some of the TNG/DS9 episodes which feature Romulans as antagonists. Then Compare the likes of Sela, Taris, Vreenak or Tomalak etc to Tovan Khev. That should be a very straightforward way of showing the difference between Romulans and Cryptic's 'Romulans'.
Comments
He becomes irrelevant once you have completed the story missions, making adjustments to dialog pointless. His traits aren't desirable so he is wasting a space on the roster.
It would be a different story if we had SWTOR like companions, but in STO he's just a waste of space due to the lack of customization.
Why couldn't Tovan Khev have been an old man who was unable to fight, but could advise from the sidelines, or be involved in the relevant missions.
I really don't get why the Romulan campaign features him the way it does, because the Klingon campaign, released on the VERY SAME DAY, has dealt with this problem perfectly.
With regards to the plot - Tovan and K'mtar fulfill the same role (right down to oversharing about their personal lives), but K'mtar is never a member of your crew. He just quietly dies when he's no longer needed.
If the arguement to keep Tovan on the ship is because he is essential in certain quests, that's ignored for Klingons, if you replay the mission at Sirella's house after K'mtar dies, he's miraculously resurrected and at your side again.
I am quite happy to be given a purple BOFF to start with, but I don't get why he can't be customised, when everything else can.
Also - and I am really letting my inner trekker out of the box here to finish this rant - Tovan Khev - is that a Romulan name? Bajoran or Cardassian maybe, but I just can't imagine Commander Khev facing down Captain Picard.
Personally I love Tovan and thought it was an awesome idea to have him in the game. I didnt like the way the KDF story went. Maybe giving Tovan some better abilities would be great. I also think by the time you reach level 50 you have enough bridge officer slots that it isn't game ruining for Tovan to still be around.
Dude's riding shotgun with me until the Republic takes my warbird away...
(And you're right - in-story, Tovan Khev was never part of the Imperial fleet. He was just a tech on Virinat, and would have lived his entire life without ever so much as leaving the settlement if Hakeev hadn't had other plans.)
What about Captain Picard v Chicken Khev. Let me tell you, you don't want to get between a Frenchman and anything garlic.
On topic...
I like that we get these boffs as part of the story. Feels a bit more complete than the Federation experience which rewards random'ish boffs at certain levels. Personally I'm inclined to keep them even with the boff limit and their imperfect traits. I'd feel a bit nasty dismissing them.
I suspect the problem is mission replays. While Tovan is only essential up to a certain point in the story, with mission replay allowing us to revisit those earlier missions getting rid of him could be problematic.
I imagine the people who complain about not being able to remove him would also complain that those missions still act like he is there. What this means is that until there is a work around there is little reason to allow Tovan to be dismissed.
Too bad I couldn't leave him behind on the Elachi space station. They would have committed mass suicide to escape his unending whining, saving me the bother of having to fight the Battle of New Romulus. Plus, the idea of him being trapped forever on an abandoned space station in subspace that no one can ever get to seems strangely appropriate for all the annoyances Tovan Khev has been responsible for in my Romulan games.
If you like him, that's fine, carry on using him. I hate everything about him, but I have no way to make him go away. I don't need premade BOFFs to interact with, I have my imagination for that, and all my other STO characters got along perfectly well with their crews of randomly generated BOFFs that I gradually created my own backstories for.
This character is why I don't play my Romulan any more. Tovan Khev is NOT my BFF! Get him off my bridge!
Lol seriously Crpytic if you are going to introduce players to a storyline atleast make the storyline about the player not some npc. Players like to be added to the game not sitting on the sideline talking about some pixel npc's sister and her troubles.
You can write a story about an NPC, because you can control an NPC's background. Cryptic can't even ensure your Romulan toon is in fact even a Romulan (you could be a Reman, or even a self-defined Alien of some sort).
SWTOR made really awesome companions, they give you missions and you can romance them.
It's also a system that introduced Malavai Quinn and other hated companions you just. can't. get. rid. of. plus poor customization. Every system has its flaws.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
And he'll still be a male romulan tactical officer with crappy traits...
You know what?
There are many romulan tactical officers with crappy traits, but THIS ONE is MINE!
^P>S> got the FULL METAL JACKET reference there buddy.
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That being said I do think we should be given a free extra BOFF slot to accomadate him.
An episode where in the end, an optional ending would be to kill Thovan horribly off in a gruesome, most traumatic way. Death by Eppoh. Where Thovan is sent out to tag them, but ends up being roflstomped and tickled to death.
So, perhaps an extra BOFF slot to make up for sticking Tovan in there with Gorilla Glue?