Greetings and well met!
I have been DMing since the early 80's and have run games for dozens of systems since. ADnD2e is my home, though I enjoy Pathfinder and I am finding much of 5E is pretty good.
My games tend to be Role Play heavy, and the players choose their own paths and discover their own epic journeys. That being said I'm not averse to a good dungeon crawl or deep combat scenarios, but the choice on where and when to tackle such things is entirely up to the player. I have the world in front of me and it's their decision what parts of it they want to interact with.
As the player is more-or-less in charge, there have always been times when a player will request a one-on-one game to accomplish some side quest, or pursue some personal goal. It all just adds to the overall experience for everyone.