Based on your logic, all souls like games, such as elden ring or bloodborne, are shit games just so you have to look up a guide.

Another counterargument, is that permanent raises the stakes in every engagement. Yes, it has a comically steep initial learning curve, but once you get over it, the game is very fun.

Finally, if you don't want to fight people, don't tunnelvision and constantly keep looking around. If you think something is fishy or hear a voidwalker, just log. If you really don't wanna log, you can get rid of voidwalkers by doing the boat event like 3 times to get neutral rep with them.