In my fiction there’s war. And sex. Lots of both. In gaming, sadly, there’s only war. (Except in my Skyrim anyway.) (Thank you Sexlab.) Killing can be necessary, and sometimes it can be avoided. There are different paths you can take in every game. In my Skyrim I sometimes play without a weapon so no fighting at all. I make up a story for my character where she has to get from XXXXX town to XXXXX town and has to get there without getting killed. It can be amazingly difficult, but incredibly fun.
In GW2 just now… My friend and I were doing our nightly play and we followed a group into a dungeon we’d never been in before. There was a puzzle inside…. putting ‘eyes’ on the proper sequence of stones. I’m not sure how many times we tried till it finally opened. It was me and my friend and three others who we didn’t know at all. (In GW2 you are to just run to join in… no grouping/party needed so you end up really getting to do all sorts of interesting things just by joining in.) That sort of thing is everywhere.
In any case, I enjoy the strategy of the kills. Whether sneaking and conquering from afar, running in and hitting everything at once, putting debuffs and all on the mob, or healing everyone else running in. Whatever… It’s all fun. In a group or alone.