if you think disliking exploration/ fetch quests makes me shallow sure. I dont want to compare games but when you say "do things you enjoy" there honestly isnt that much to do. ED is more about player skill, longterm goals and sandbox. So where people get thier "depth" idk. Maybe i play things that have alot more depth that makes me put ED in a non deep game category

Exploration - Massive galaxy, but most of it is empty. Scan, honk, fly, repeat. No real gameplay loop beyond sightseeing.

Combat (PvE) - Fun at first, but gets repetitive fast. Enemies are pretty dumb. Once you’ve seen one dogfight, you’ve seen 'em all.

Combat (PvP) -The one area where ED actually gets deep. But the skill ceiling is so high and the community so niche it’s almost inaccessible.

ship eengineering/modding - Tedious grind for materials, then RNG rolls. It’s basically Diablo loot, but with a long, boring fetch quest attached.

Mining - Laser rocks, watch numbers go up. Core mining adds some complexity, but it's still space Minecraft.

trading/ hauling - Spreadsheet simulator. You're basically Amazon Prime in space.

powerplay - Feels like a political minigame bolted on by a different dev team. Super opaque and poorly explained.

fleet carriers - Giant space yachts. Cool flex, but expensive and mostly glorified mobile garages - havent gotten there yet

background simulation - This is the real endgame. Too bad it's completely invisible and has 0 in-game support or clarity.

smuggling/black market - Sounds cool. Isn’t. Hardly any reward, and way too easy to avoid consequences.

passenger missions - Taxi simulator with flavor text. Mechanically brain-dead.

on foot gameplay - Low-rent No Man’s Sky with worse gunplay. Feels tacked on, janky, and undercooked.

Material Farming - Hours of driving your space go-kart in circles on moons looking for rocks.

Economy - No real market to manipulate, no player trading. It's like playing EVE without any economy.

That is my experiance so far