^^ at a fundamental level, all games are a matter of pushing the right button in the right order at the right time. Or Rolling the right skills at the right time.
Only things that matters is : Why ?
In ED Why = "To make credits" in most cases.
Moving to intrinsic rewards (i.e. playing for the fun/advancing the story/discovering X) is much harder to setup, as one needs :
1) Memorable locations, and characters. ED has the former done okayish, but not the later.
2) Getting the players in situations where they have skin in the game (i.e. care about where the story is going) : non-existant (embryo state in the BGS/PP)
3) Initial challenge - setback/complications - Final challenge : non-existant
4) Meaningfull narative context by making good use of the lore as backdrop/clue/reward : mostly missing
5) Color (social realist station in communist systems, slums/high rise in Corpo, System at war being very dangerous idea and feeling like it, etc...) : mostly missing
6) Opposition driven by legible motives and with ressource to bring to bear against the player : inexistant
Once this is improved, FD can build robust not-fully linear "quests"/"short stories" centered around ED lore / memorable locations. (e.g. Tionisla graveyard, the Lave cluster and so on).
If I was in FDev shoes I would try to pick a dozen of memorable ED locations with a rich lore, and build a 5-by-5's for each.
To FDev : read about "5x5 quest design", "3 clues rule", "don't prep plots, prep situations"
