In my opinion games need to shift towards the paradigm of more social reliance and specialisation like older games from the 2000s figured out than the jack of all trades/one person can do everything than games tend to move towards nowadays. Gameplay in modern games is too modular like a venn diagram without the circles overlapping.
People want to be relied upon and feel valued and feel like their actions and contributions matter. Eve does many things right and those include having a way that people can dip their toes into all professions with significantly less resources or time committed but there is also a way for people to specialize and be a master of a profession since it is harder to get the last tier of a skill and also extra prerequisites.
Eve also understands risk reward system with high sec being fairly safe to low and null and even wh space providing avenue for people to venture into dangerous areas to satisfy their risk reward hunger on their own terms. Too many games lately seem to either go fully in one direction or the other in relation to full loop pvp and most people who aren't unemployed, students or teenagers don't have the time for games like Rust. People aren't risk averse they just want to hoard things (we are hunter gathers in origin) but also want to gamble at at chance for bigger rewards. Another example is Runescape's PK area.
The sheer size of the playable area in Eve means that local economies and local markets can be formed further enhancing the need and reliance for specialised people.
Eve cargo hauling is interesting and engaging because you are carry actual people's cargo from A to B with your collateral on the line instead of so arbitrary made up value in some database with no meaning. You are providing a real service to a real person and that is extremely rewarding. Again this is possible because the size of the universe and localised markets with no global inventory or market.
People sometimes want to chill and mine rocks/chop trees for hours just to donate it to their org as some altruistic act and what games dont seem to understand is that having a donation leaderboard in the guild for materials donated is an extremely efficient way to provide motivation and a gameplay loop itself. Anyone remember Ikarium and having to donate to nodes to level it up?
There is a concious design choice to limit enemy types in games that completly ruin the sense of exploration and wonder that games like Runescape, Maplestory, Voyage Century back in days use to provide in bucket fulls. Games like Sea of Thieves, Destiny and Anthem purposefully curate races and enemies you fight in the game because of the story and eventually hitting the same skelton for the 10000th time gets old. It's one of the major reasons why Anthem failed. It's not just about the sheer number in variety either, enemies have to feel dangerous and powerful. The only game recently that gave me the same feeling as Runescape or the feeling of meeting the T-Rex in Tomb Raider 1 is Valheim. The devs of Valheim seem to understand key ideas in which makes games fun and the suits in AAA studios who make the decisions should play Valheim if they haven't to get a clue.
The ability to build roads and bridges that other people can use in Death Stranding is exactly the impactful and meaningful cooperative gameplay people should be aiming for rather than some closed off gameplay loop that some designer wanted you to repeat on a cycle until you get bored. Also games should look at GW2 dynamic events because they are the most engaging things I have taken part in especially Auric basin and Dragon Stand as well as a unique way to implement 24/7 territory based pvp that doesn't penalize you for being in different timezones and where small group pvp can make a visible impact.
I can talk for hours on why people feel jaded towards modern games. The most common thing I hear from gamers and streamers is "what else is there" while they continue to return to MOBAs or competitive shooters.