What would you recommend me to do to have fun in this game?

Not a hate post, I'm seriously asking for your advice, guys. I really like to enjoy stories in games, but I hate grinding. When I first played the game as a Bounty Hunter (3 years ago) it was mostly about grinding, dealing with boring quests that were always the same, things like that... The class story was good, but I just couldn’t make myself finish it because of all the grinding. So, what would you recommend me to do differently now? Are there really good story quests that I should do? Is there a list of them? I'm playing as an Imperial agent now.

Also, I like immersion, so... Is there something more to do on your ship or something like Pazaak in cantinas now or anything similar?

Thanks a lot, guys!