History YMMV / StarTrekOnline

* WhatAnIdiot: The Klingons in the backstory. They had evidence gathered covertly by Ja'rod that the Gorn were infiltrated by the Undine, and want the Federation's support to clean them out. Bear in mind that by this point the Klingons and the Gorn had already been shooting at each other off-and-on for twenty years.\\
'''You'd expect:''' That the Klingons would calmly present their evidence to their ally and get them on board.\\
'''Instead:''' They go off half-cocked and launch an immediate invasion and then just demand that the Federation come in and back them up, then throw a tantrum and withdraw from the Khitomer Accords when the Federation tells them to knock it off. Which ends up playing directly into the hands of the Undine and the Iconians by weakening both the Klingons and the Gorn, and then the Federation when J'mpok decides to turn on ''them'' after finishing his conquest of the Gorn.\\
'''And keep in mind:''' That they did ''the exact same thing'' back in 2372, proved to be CryingWolf, drove the Cardassians right into the Dominion's arms, and it turned out in the end that ''they'' were the ones who were infiltrated. Seems the Klingons have really poor memories.
* WinBackTheCrowd: In a sense. One of the major complaints players had since Stephen D'Angelo's second reign in the game was a horrible lack of communication. It made players feel that Cryptic was trying its best to kill the game by ignoring players. When Stephen "[=SalamiInferno=]" Ricossa took over the reigns, he made players a lot happier with his quick response due to a massive miscommunication mix up and an extension to the event. However, this is still a massive YMMV, as while players on the Reddit forums were more accepting of the apology and the response, those on the forums were quick to put down the new EP, stating that, instead of an extension, they should have put back everything the way it was.
** Message Board Community Manager "[=LaughingTrendy=]" has been doing this since she took over the reigns after "[=CaptainSmirk's=]" sudden firing. Trendy's actions have been firm, yet fair, getting things back on topic instead of shutting them down when they went off topic and actually approaching those at Cryptic about players' problems.
** The Phoenix Prize Pack, which allows players to be able to try to win retired items for a simple Dilithium fee has really gone over well with the player base. Many no doubt also appreciate it because one of the ''basic'' rewards are 'Phoenix Tech Upgrades', which can grant a significant amount of Tech Points to ''any item'' at no cost in resources - making it that much easier to get all your equipment up to maximum rank and higher rarity.
** The Lukari arc has been welcomed simply because it doesn't involve Iconians or mind-bending time travel, and because of the TOS nostalgia and the Lukari being generally nice to be around.

* {{Altitis}}: The game suffers horribly from it - free players get three slots (four, following the Delta Recruitment event) and subscribers/LTS players get 4-5 to start with and can purchase 2 or 4 more up to a maximum of ''[[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters 49]]''. With three factions, three classes and multiple races (''especially'' the catch-all "Alien"), players will want to try to get them all. However, this has caused players to be bitten in the ass as of recently due to the time-gated grinds - players who are in the mind set of GottaCatchEmAll wants to have their characters with ''all'' of the ships, ''all'' of the [=DOFF=]s, as much Dilithium as possible and will get ''really'' pissy because they can't. The advent of ''Delta Rising'' made this harder for many players who had accumulated multiple characters due to a number of reasons, including a lack of usable missions to level up with and the advent of the Specialization trees. After Steven "[=SalamiInferno=]" Ricossa took over as executive producer Cryptic started taking steps to remedy this, including making ships obtained via event grinds available for free across all characters once they'd been unlocked once.

** As of October 2021, the "Death Planet" Nukara map treats you as if you're always wearing an environment suit, even if your toon is walking around in a miniskirt (rather than the planet killing you).
** Possibly part of the same update, the Borg stopped adjusting to your energy weapons, so the hated frequency remodulators can be dispensed with in favor of something ''useful'' on your toolbar.

** As of October 2020, the "Death Planet" Nukara map treats you as if you're always wearing an environment suit, even if your toon is walking around in a miniskirt (rather than the planet killing you).

** Klingon TFO "To Hell With Honor" is a mass space-to-surface assault set to a looping electronic riff on Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyrie". Bonus points for J'Mpok's line [[Film/ApocalypseNow "The smell of deuterium in the morning is most pleasing!"]]

** An event at Starfleet Academy where players help cadets find and analyze little glowing energy balls? No problem. Random balls triggering a holographic enemy that players have a gunfight with, on what is essentially a college campus, with students strolling to and fro? Even assuming all the phasers are set on stun, it's rather tone-deaf in being reminiscent of school shootings.

** For a sizable section of the playerbase, the fact that the Romulan Republic is not implemented as a fully separate faction. After the tenth mission Romulan characters have to choose to make an alliance with either the Federation or the Klingons. This get even worse if you want to play a Dominion character, where not only do you have to ally with a faction earlier, but your race has ZERO exclusive campaign missions, apart from the introductory training session.

** For a sizable section of the playerbase, the fact that the Romulan Republic is not implemented as a fully separate faction. After the tenth mission Romulan characters have to choose to make an alliance with either the Federation or the Klingons.

** The repetitive dialogue in certain task force missions becomes unbearable during a long grind for reputation progress. ("Shipyard Troop Transports are heading for the planet surface!... Shipyard Troop Transports are heading for the planet surface!...Shipyard Troop Transports are heading for the planet surface!...Shipyard Troop Transports are heading for the planet surface!...")

** Mirror!Leeta's alternatively threatening the players and calling for repairs when Terek Nor invades our universe, always at full volume ("We've taken too much damage!... Now feel the wrath of the Terran Empire!!"), is so far over the top she rivals Hakeev for scenery-chewing. She's no less hammy in any other appearance either.

** Klingon TFO "To Hell With Honor" is a mass space-to-surface assault set to a looping riff on Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyrie". Bonus points for the line [[Film/ApocalypseNow "Exploding deuterium is most pleasing!"]]

** Klingon TFO "To Hell With Honor" is a mass space-to-surface assault set to a looping riff on Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyrie".

* CrazyAwesome: Guroth of the cross-faction Delta Fleet. Why? Because the guy loves his explosives. He's also quite smart, as he points out certain things to make bigger booms without threatening ships. He also pulls a StrawmanHasAPoint in his chapter of "Tales of the War" when he points out that they're in a war, redundancies can go to hell when you're trying to win. Especially if you know what you're doing.

** [[http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1311761 Here]] we learn about a way to kill {{NPC}}s on social maps. After completing "Defend Rhi'ihho Station", go looking for a surviving Elachi skitterer, then beam out right as it attacks, causing it to explode on the next map.

** Thanks to power creep, outside of premade PVP teams healboats and tank builds basically have no role because A) even the flimsiest tacscort can usually pack in enough self-heals to last well enough against {{NPC}} attackers, and B) DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist. Thus, if you aren't meaningfully contributing to DPS while in a PVE instance, or packing offensive sci, you're basically just slowing down the team. This is at the core of the PR problems of the ''Galaxy''-R, ''Galaxy''-X, and Star Cruiser, all three of which are engi tanks with limited tac powers.

** "Broken Circle". Protip: A ZergRush against a fortified target generally only works when the attackers have a ''significant'' numerical advantage, because fortification is a force multiplier for the defense (it limits the attackers' ability to attack the defenders). The ''defenders'' have the numerical advantage in this mission. Though the attackers had few options to begin with, you get [[RealityEnsues no points for guessing how that turned out.]]

** "Broken Circle". Protip: A ZergRush against a fortified target, like, say, a DysonSphere, generally only works when the attackers have a ''significant'' numerical advantage, because fortification is a force multiplier for the defense (it limits the attackers' ability to attack the defenders). The ''defenders'' have the numerical advantage in this mission. [[RealityEnsues No points for guessing how that turned out.]]
** All of the temporal missions could potentially have been avoided if Daniels just went back a few more weeks in time and stopped [[spoiler:Noye]] from stealing the timeship. "Potentially", of course, assuming that [[spoiler:Noye]] and friends didn't have measures to prevent this in the first place - especially given his temporal resources - but no thought of attempting this in the first place is given.
** Both the Iconian War and the Temporal Cold War turn out to be caused by a string of misapplied retribution scenarios, causing {{Stable Time Loop}}s where one side attacks to pay the other side back for attacking ''them'' in the past, which in turn provokes the first attack and so on. Furthermore, the Temporal Accords attempt to designate some such time travel as desirable and some not, when according to Cryptic's blog no one version of events is actually more "correct" than any other. Hence, the TimePolice are UnintentionallyUnsympathetic because they're basically just trying to protect the version of events that put them in power, the Na'Kuhl are UnintentionallySympathetic because they just want to put their [[DoomedHometown ruined home planet]] back the way it was before all this nonsense started, and the Tholian delegate to the Temporal Accords signing ceremony[[note]]the Tholians being the people who destroyed the Na'kuhl homeworld in the past, to avenge the Na'kuhl destroying one of their hatcheries later to avenge the first attack[[/note]] can come off as the OnlySaneMan for calling for a ban on ''all'' time travel.

[[folder:Tropes A-D]]

[[folder:Tropes E-L]]

[[folder: Tropes M-S]]

[[folder:Tropes T-Z]]

** While testing the brand new Admirality System on Tribble, players began finding out that their ships were being treated as DOFFs for the normal DOFF system. Thus, we have [[http://i.imgur.com/nM1mnx2.png a Kobali Samsar Cruiser]] being sent to a councilor, [[http://i.imgur.com/HpGsrB7.png A Jem'Hadar Dreadnought]] being treated for minor lacerations and [[http://i.imgur.com/sn5yWMi.png A Breen Saar Thelen Carrier]] being treated for a stomach ache. ''Oh, the irony''.

** Cryptic is aware of this and has started to work on it a little bit, first by adding new Featured Episodes at the end of the storylines and second, by announcing that they are revamping and retconning the old last level missions (specifically the underwhelming and annoying Cardassian, Borg, and Undine arcs). Additionally, the Breen, Devidian, Second Wave DS9, and Nimbus mission arcs - with the exception ofthe latter for Romulan players - are made secondary, optional mission arcs. Play them, or don't; it's up to you.

** J'mpok is another one. Feddies hate him for starting the KDF-FED war. KDF players hate him for killing Martok. In-universe he has a ZeroPercentApprovalRating, but he's never been an actual villain [[spoiler:until the Klingon Civil War arc]].

* ScapegoatCreator:
** Al "[=CaptainGeko=]" Rivera. As Head Developer of STO for much of the mid-2010s, it's not uncommon for players to paint a picture of him as this horrible dev who has no idea what he's doing and is horribly biased against anything non-Federation and non-DPS. In particular, the desire to have a KDF-focused Science ship has been a big desire from KDF-based players and they are not happy that Al has either sidestepped the question or ignored it completely.
** {{Inverted}} with Nick "Tacofangs" Duguid, one of the art guys and the only dev to interact with the forum membership on a regular basis. Everybody seems to love him. Possibly because the game's art has always been great and Tacofangs is well-known to be an easygoing guy. This reached memetic status when Tacofangs was declared "Forum Overlord" at one point.

It should be noted that these are both a major case of AccentuateTheNegative: in the main forums, there are other places where players don't curse Cryptic's name in anger and act like complete nut cases and a lot of that is focused in the General Discussion section and in the Reddit forum, there are players are critical of the game, but show it in a way that doesn't invoke the {{GIFT}} like the forums do (though there are a few players there who ''do'' and will even get critical if you ever dare try to downvote them.)

** J'ula in the ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery''-related missions and especially the new ''Klingon Civil War'' episode. She already had a strike against her for being T'Kuvma's sister, tying her irretrievably to DSC's ContestedPrequel status. Once transported to the present day, she mounts a Klingon-ultranationalist terrorist campaign against TheAlliance that eventually escalates the preexisting divisions in the Klingon Empire into a full-blown CivilWar--but then in a ShockingSwerve, the game {{railroad|ing}}s her and all {{Player Character}}s (including DSC Federation characters, whose commanding officer she murdered in the JustifiedTutorial) into an EnemyMine [[spoiler:when her NumberTwo betrays her and hands her WeaponOfMassDestruction to Chancellor J'mpok, after the Chairman of the Alliance for some bizarre reason decides to help her overthrow J'mpok]]. Came to a head with the 2021 anniversary episode "Knowledge Is Power", which requires the player to play as her for the majority of the mission. The developers seem totally in love with her, but the players largely hate her and believe the Great Houses have the right idea in ChoosingNeutrality.

** The deleted mission "Divide et Impera", due to railroading and a lack of consequences for the player character mass-murdering Romulan civilian doctors. The Foundry mission "[[Recap/StarTrekOnlineFoundryDivideUtRegnes Divide ut Regnes]]" was written as a FixFic.
** "House Pegh". The player is railroaded through a mission with Klingons who claim to be black-ops specialists...who then immediately beam in [[spoiler:Kahless]] and go along with his stupid plan to attack an [[AGodAmI Iconian]] in "honorable combat". You are not allowed to offer any serious protests to this, even as a Federation or Romulan player. [[spoiler:Kahless]]'s attack is exactly as unsuccessful as you'd expect, and it takes a [[KlingonScientistsGetNoRespect Klingon scientist]] {{technobabble}}'ing down the Iconian's shields to allow him to harm it. Then, with the Iconian on the ground and injured, [[spoiler:Kahless]] [[WhatAnIdiot takes the moment]] [[TooDumbToLive to gloat at length about honor]]. Predictably, [[KarmicDeath the Iconian kills him while he's busy bragging]], leaving [[spoiler:the Sword of Kahless]] just lying there as the PC and the incompetent so-called elite hit team run away in terror from a couple of low-level Herald mooks. Backlash on the forums was ''intense'': even most of the Klingon fans hated it.

** All of the temporal missions could have been avoided if Daniels just ''went back a few more weeks in time and stopped [[spoiler:Noye]] from stealing the timeship''.