Removing Death from the cycle was one of the earlier things that happened. The wars with Godfrey came after that, Ranni stealing the rune from Maliketh, Godwyn and her dying in their ways, the war, etc. From what I read it seems likely to me that Marika has been done with the Greater Will's shit for a while.
And yeah you're right, the Will does want things to run its certain way. It basically wants a Tarnished to deal with the demigod crap, put the Ring back together, and plop their ass down in the throne to become the new face of the Golden Order. There's only so much it can do to ensure that happens so you can go along with that or do something else, like go with the Frenzy god or Ranni, who wants free will for all (though I suspect she's manipulated by another outer god as well lol).
With all that said, it's a From game so of course I'm still putting pieces together myself and can have things wrong. For some reason it's part of what makes these games so fun to talk about for me.