what is the nature of STO?

We know it's marketed as an MMO, and there are MMO elements in the base design of the game, but the 'sense' of the direction of development since 2011 hasn't been in that direction.

1. The majority of the quests are solo-player quests.
2. the direction of abilities development-in an MMO, for instance, your area-of-effect powers tend to be weaker against point targets/single opponents, or suffer shorter range, or suffer poor accuracy, or suffer damage drop-off, or even pose a risk if you're too close to the point of impact. I present you with BFAW, overcapped, as the 'won true power' here. also the lack of testing and more importantly, the 'Average player' metric used by Borticus-which does not take into account synergies with other players.
3. reduction of traditional 'meeting places' in importance-in 2012, if you wanted to cash in your tokens for STF gear, you had to go to Deep Space Nine, and visit Roxy. if you wanted to do crafting, it was Qo'noS or Memory Alpha, etc. etc. Since season 7, this is no longer the case. The closest thing to it, is visiting a fleet starbase for Fleet gear-which is inherently a solo shopping activity, one not tied to meeting NEW people, forming teams, etc.
4. every 'raid' event follows roughly the same pattern-solo-spamming beams at mobs on predictable intervals, after which the team breaks up. None of the material requires teamwork, or even encourages it. the way the abilities function (or fail to function), healers, team-buffers, etc. are unnecessary-only DPS matters-which is a trait of solo shooters.
5. how many of hte post-LoR story content can you bring a teammate along on? most of it is intensely solo, without even the option-this is post-levelling, this is supposed to be AFTER you've hit sixty...
6. Lack of support for content that is inherently social and teamed-PvP hasn't seen a dime of development since 2011 (aside from activating a 'shuttle code' on a copy of the cracked planetoid map). Indeed, PvP has seen "Negative development" losing the faction-specific maps when it was turned RvB, having one third of the original-release missions removed, and reciept of no further attention.
7. Teh game is balanced as a single-player game. that is, it's not balanced at all, instead, there is only power-creep and hitpoint-creep(applied to NPC's)
8. there is resource poolign of a sort with the Fleet system, but it's not really tied to anything, and certainly requires only the most minimal social interaction.
9. Factions only matter in that if you're not playing a Fed Romulan, you don't matter.
10. Faction development stalled, got a short start, then was shelved indefinitely, in addition, per the Lead Developer's own words, "Romulans are supposed to be OP".
11. all missions are written from a (halfway-done or shoddily executed) Fed perspective, all new development is focused on maintaining a 73% domination in player numbers toward one faction.
12. New mechanics aren't tested in a multiplayer environment, but instead modeled according to a mythical standard that ignores reality, and counter-results found on Tribble are ignored if they don't start wth "ohgodit'ssokewl!!!SQUEEEE!!!"
13. Impact of new abilities are not measured against existing abilities for balance, existing abilities aren't kept updated to match the impact of new abilities.
14. The Klingon War, the Vadwuar conflict, the Iconian War-where?? what impact?? We see blog posts, but in game there's nothing but some fast queues and solo missions. Nothing to draw people into it in groups, and minus crass bribes in the form of higher mark-rewards, nothing to draw people out of Infected Space (the STF, not the location).

The sense that this is a Massive universe for characters is absent-it feels instead like a "Mobile' version of a single-player shooter from the nineties with some MMO features awkwardly bolted on, then promptly forgotten and buried.

this is, of course, all very subjective. I'm sure my impressions aren't the impressions of a great many of you out there, but to me, the above list indicates a real problem. *or series of problems*

some of it is, no doubt, economic. HOWEVER...

how much of that economic problem devolves from the chosen method of monetization, vs. how much of it is the psychological limitations of the leadership at Cryptic?

STO seems to be sitting in a cleft-it WANTS to be an MMO, but the developers seem unable ot handle the social aspects of MMO gameplay, as well as being somewhat in the dark about what differentiates a good MMO from a themed shooter with coop options. It's very much a feeling of them not being committed to developing an immersive multiplayer/multi-faction environment, while at the same time being unwilling or unable to commit to doing a single-player game properly.

what do I mean by that second part?

Player Agency.

there is none in STO. You follow a single line, that doesn't vary based on your faction, race, career, from start to finish along a narrow track to a final endless grind for shinies you not only don't need, but probably wouldn't want if they weren't being hyped at you, that serve no real purpose since you're already advanced by the time you get to them. In this entire time, you make no choices that have any meaning in the game.

None.

Your character gets 'options' but those options have no impact on the outcome.

Yu have rank, but you're still doing scut-work for lower-ranking officers, sometimes lower ranking STAFF officers (adding insult to injury for KDF players, those officers are largely Federation officers.)

without meaningful-seeming choices, you're left with one of those cable-pulled cart-rides, fun the first time, but losing that fun with repetition-there are no other directions you could go-you don't get to face the moral questions that Star Trek posed, because your answers are hand-selected by the devs.

so it's not really designed like a modern single-player game, and it's completely short on MMO structure and development that would fulfill the promise it began with.

again, htis is a purely subjective opinion.

Could any of this be fixed?

Possibly. Even at this late in the game's lifespan, some, most or all of the things noted as defects could be addressed, and could even be profitable.

But...will it?

a lot of what's missing would require man-hours and money. Most of it would also require something I don't think for a moment the Lead developer or his staff have, or even comprehend-a grasp of immersion in a setting, a grasp of social interaction, a grasp of multiple-player interactions and concepts like counterplay, asymmetrical balance (that's where you ahve different units with different abilities and still get what amounts to an even chance of winning barring truly random, or at least, not-in-hand, Factors).

again, this is totally subjective, but a lot of this is based on both playing the game, and reading/interacting with other players.

Suggestions to maybe start fixing the defects...

1. shitcan the 'Average player model/metric' for development testing. This is the model that resulted in the million-point-consoles, Embassy Plasma Explosions (and nerf), Tau Dewa fiasco, etc. etc, and adopt a Multiplayer mode of tesitng-maybe get the coffee girl and the security guard and the damn gardner at Cryptic's headquarters in as test-dummies on the internal server, then when something is released to tribble...actually LISTEN to the feedback and monitor Tribble sessions. Look for the outliers, look for the exploits. It is entirely too much to ask for a Dev to participate in PvP-first there would have to BE some PvP going on-(there isn't anymore), but testing with randoms to see if you missed something in the model might not be a bad start.
2. make social zones MEAN SOMETHING AGAIN. We all know how in love with dropdown-menu and sliders D'Angelo was-those are fine for soloplayer shooters, but they're the very definition of anti-social for games. Particularly Multi-player games. If players had to report to their Starbase to pick up missions and collect marks, or to spend marks/resources (or if they had to report to the zone-location of the various fleet holdings), if htey had to visit Omega to collect their Omega Marks or to sign up for STF's, if they had to actually be anywhere near New Romulus to do those missions, collect marks, or collect the goodies from those marks...
3. Match-making. In 2010 Match-making and Leaderboards were "Just around the corner". It's turned out to be a pretty damn big corner, the result of which is that the existing power discrepancy between players results in otherwise active players getting AFK penalties because the mission is over before they have closed with the enemy/objectives. This should not be happening-it shouldn't even be POSSIBLE in a true Multiplayer environment. The reason is imbalance of teams. (The DPS guys can go on for hours about this.) This would be stopped with a basic Battlevalue-based matchmaking system-which would also solve the "completes too fast" problem driving up NPC hitpoints and driving Cryptic's fetish for time-gates.
4. distance-gate (Some) things instead of time-gating them. If you're having to leave, say, ESD to go to DS9, then off to the Fleet STarbase system to do your transactions, that's bound to take time. if in the process you're running into hazards along the way, that's also adding excitement, random encounters, etc. to your playing experience. It's IMMERSIVE. having to report-as in fly over there and REPORT to the Omega group instead of clikking a box to collect your lootz, is as good as adding a timer to the queue, but without the angst of adding a timer to the queue.
5. which leads to the next controversial idea...Eliminate the queues. Entirely. Put those missions (and their rewards) on the map, with access granted by mission-giving Admirals and Generals in the social zones, who are holding your payout until you get back...and you have to have or form a team to go. That means that if someone wants to run Infected Space, they'll need to "LFG!!" or check their friends list, fleet list, armada, etc. which in turn eliminates one more time-gate requirement, since you won't need a cooldown if people have to travel to the mission giver, recruit a team (or the reverse-recruit their team,then travel), then travel to the site, run their STF, come back, and start over again. This also fills the 'need' for duration-in-game, since they're not sitting there in ESD clicking a drop-down and waiting for cooldowns.
6. Rep should be tied to your decisions. this would mean a genuine re-work of the Romulan Mystery, etc. arcs to include actual choices, with potential consequences that direct your options-i.e. pro-Reman choices opening access to Reman gear vs. pro-Romulan choices opening access to Romulan gear, a sort of 'Paragon/renegade' spread, which determines which Rep items you have access to, instead of having all of them available all at once. With TFO, link the unlocks to Ground gear to doing..GROUND MISSIONS!!! (Gasp!) and space gear to the space missions. maybe even specific parts to specific missions. Still not a random drop still costs marks, still can get all the marks in the world doing Infected Space, but...if you want to unlock the store section that says "KHG ground gear" you have to run at least one Ground STF of appropriate level to a successful completion-including optionals. What this does, is restore the desirability of those items without requiring massive power-creeping OF those items. A similar linkage with the other reps is suitable as well, and eliminates the "Look for the cheapest and easiest route" situation that's left much of the content unplayed to the point of becoming unplayable (can't get a group together).

anyway, that's my rambling. I'm sure there are plenty of folks willing-even eager-to show or tell me how I'm wrong, full of...stuff...etc.

Feel free to do so.