If you want to play let’s pretend with dice, that’s fine. just be honest about the kind of game that you’re running from the get go so I know not to join your table.

That is the game of DnD, Pathfinder, or really any other TTRPG. What it sounds like you want is war games. Go play that. Just because the only parts of the books you've bothered to read/remember are combat rules, does not make that the majority of the books.

I feel like video games calling themselves RPGs have ruined entire swaths of people to what an RPG means. These are games about telling a story, not who can do the most damage. You sound like an awful person to have at the table. You aren't "being punished for being good at the game", I'd argue you actually aren't good at the game because you only care about or focus on one aspect of the game and ignore the rest of it.

Stop looking at TTRPGs as video games, as a means to make big numbers go brrrrr, and (re-)read the core rulebook. You'll find a lot more of it than you are suggesting has nothing to do with combat when you aren't looking at it through a lens of "how to combat".