Ultimately I view the benefits gained by allowing you to kill anything, outweigh the costs of some players min maxing through the game. For that reason I am in favor of adding non-combat options, but not removing combat ones.
Absolutely agree.
What if an NPC had a "Reward Pool" and that reward pool were given out upon EITHER successfully interacting with NPC, or killing them? That would totally eliminate anyone min-maxing the "system" by non-combat means and gaining the XP, and then returning and killing them. Same goes for monetary treasure -- I've seen games where you can pickpocket an NPC and gain some gold/treasure, and then kill them and gain more gold/treasure.
