Question: In most stealth games, the game rates you as having done the best job if you get in and out without anyone being suspicious, and without killing anyone. *Mark of the Ninja* is no different - there's a score bonus for being undetected, and a score bonus for making it through an entire level without making a kill.

However, there are also large score bonuses for murdering people in particularly brutal fashion. For instance, consider a vent kill:

* 600 points for the kill (a "Prowling Spider")
* 250 points for hiding the body (automatic, I drag him into the vent)

If I avoid him instead, though, I just get +400 at the end of the level, plus if I manage to do the entire level perfectly I might get +3000, but with 20 or more guards per level, this works out to 150 or fewer points per guard.

Stacked on top of this, I could have gotten "Undetected" (+200) by hiding in the room with him previously, and/or "Distracted" (+150) for getting him to look the other way by breaking a light for example. These bonuses can occur either way, though, so they're not useful to this discussion.

That leaves us with 850 points for a kill (or even 650 in the worst case where I don't get "fancy" about it and just stab him through the neck while his back is turned) versus ~550 for leaving him undisturbed.

It seems to me like the best idea is to murder everyone and hide their bodies. Is this the case, or are there other bonuses/points I can get from being especially sneaky and not very stabby?

Answer: 
I routinely kill as many soldiers as possible, and I also try to maximize the number of soldiers I terrorize, and the amount of collateral damage they cause.

I know a couple of my friends (Mana in particular) play the game without killing any soldiers at all, and I consistently score higher than them on the leaderboards.

![I'm ranked much higher than all my friends on the global leaderboards](https://i.stack.imgur.com/l5fY7.jpg)

I think this is because there are so many more opportunities to score points if you take the violent route; terrorizing enemies gives you a huge bonus if you do it to as many as possible (even more if you can get them to kill each other), and stashing every body in a hiding place can rack up a score boost as well (+250 each).
I stealthed one level for the achievement, and as I recall my bonuses were much less than when I went around murdering people. Repeatedly.