In german there exists the term "Kabinettskriege" for the warfare in the time from 1648-1789, the english translation is 'Cabinet Wars'. It denotes a warfare with (relatively) small standing armies, internationally accepted rules and regulations, restricted war aims, few actual battles and the non-inclusion of the public. An alternative term is 'Princes' Wars'.

Sounds relatively humane and limited indeed, but the problem is, and that's why the term "Kabinettskriege" is strongly criticized today, that those wars still saw 100,000s of deaths, in the case of the War of Spanish Succession and the Seven Years' War even about 1,000,000 each. And to those deaths we might have to add the same amout of civilian deaths. Earlier and later wars might have been more deadly but the so called 'Cabinet Wars' were still far from idyllic.

One cause was that, while the initial war aims might actually have been restricted, each success of one power made another power nervous and let them enter the war on the opponents side. This, combined with secret diplomacy and frequent changes of alliances led to long and extensive wars. You certainly know, that the Great Nothern War you mentioned lasted for ~20 years, the War of the Spanish Succession lasted for ~13, compared to this the Seven Years' War was actually short. In such long time spans even very few battles/year will sum up to some amount.

And the low number of actual battles wasn't a good thing per se, the Thirty Years' War hadn't seen very many battles either but was still devastating. In this regard actually not so much had changed since: With trained soldiers and their equipment being very expensive and valuable no side was usually very keen on risking to lose too many of them during battle. So the armies spent much time on the march, trying to outmaneuvre each other, to cut off their opponents supply lines and to force them to accept battle in an advantagous position for the own side.

Meanwhile the soldiers had to eat, so they lived off the land, vulgo: the peasants. And while looting of conquered cities was ruled against the looting of the countryside was normal, the same goes for rape etc. And even with compensation by the commandeering army the loss of food was hard for the peasants, especially if this happened more then once a year.

Also hygiene was hard to maintain on the march, so war related diseases spread. Diseases and starvation were, as usual, actually the deadliest part of the wars. Take e.g. the War of the Bavarian Succession, a war that lasted for less than a year and saw exactly 0 (zero) battles. It still saw 10,000s deaths, just for this causes. Or, again, the Great Nordic War: less than 10% of swedes who died did so in actual battle, the rest died of hunger, disease or hypothermia.

A thing that was absolutely not limited was the space the wars were fought in, most of them spanned large regions, some even several continents.

And while the public wasn't involved in the war in the sense of pro-war propaganda and society wide mobilization it certainly had to pay for the war in taxes and the lifes of the young men who were for a large part pressed into the armies to fight the war.

So, yes, the wars were 'limited', but in comparison only and certainly not in scope.

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https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0968344513483071

Chandler, David G. The Art of Warfare in the Age of Marlborough

Hochedlinger. Michael Austria's Wars of Emergence, 1683-1797: War, State and Society in the Habsburg Monarchy

Plokhy, Serhii (Editor) Poltava 1709: The Battle and the Myth

Van Creveld, Martin Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton