Some MMOs don't ask you to make many decisions about how to build and gear your character. Skills are granted automatically and it's only rarely that you're actually asked to choose an additional ability/trait/talent. Similarly with gear – if a new piece of gear is better in every way than what you currently have then the decision of whether or not to equip it is essentially being made for you.
I'm thinking here about games like World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online and Star Wars The Old Republic – all of which are prone to this to one degree or another.
Some MMOs don't necessarily ask for a lot more decisions, but they do ask you to think further ahead. The cost of refining enchantments and artefacts in Neverwinter is such that I started thinking about my endgame build when I was barely halfway to the level cap, so as not to squander my resources on gear I wouldn't need later on. Similarly the gear questions are sometimes slightly more nuanced, since there's a lot of different stats to balance.
Then there are MMOs that ask you to make a lot of decisions, and make them often. Fallen Earth did this (and mercifully had a very flexible respec system that allowed for minor tweaks to be made without redoing the entire build) and Dungeons and Dragons Online does it too, especially where gear is concerned.
Star Trek Online's character building is nowhere near as complex as that of DDO, but in STO it's not just your character you have to think about. You've also got to think about your ship and your bridge officers, and all of these factors combine to put this game on a par with DDO.
That's a good thing.
Some decisions are easy. Selecting a new ship at level 10 was as simple as finding the next tier of Bird-of-Prey and clicking Accept. I don't know if it's optimal for my captain, but I don't care either – there's only one ship in all of Star Trek that I like more than the BoP, and the KDF doesn't hand out Constitution class starships.* It's an iconic design, rivalled on the Klingon side only by the D7.
So, for me at least, ship selection is easy. Not so everything else. Even with the limited range of options available to me at this level I'm already spending time mulling over the weapons and consoles the ship is fitted with, as well as the skills and gear of my officers. That the universal stations of the BoP offer more flexibility in which officers I assign than Federation ships do (in my experience) only adds to the choices available to me. It's a long way from ocassionally swapping out a weapon or piece of armor for one with slightly better stats.
*Not that I'd fly a Constitution class as a Klingon. The speed and maneuverability of the Bird-of-Prey feels far more in character, as does the heavy emphasis on forward facing weaponry which means you always want to be pointed straight at the enemy.
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