You are right that the combat feels off and "old school" in a sence where enemies just chase you and they initiate combat sequence when they touch you.
Being able to press a button and shoot to initiate combat from affar would look nice, but would pose a lot of chalenges to get it right.
- Enemies on the map that are in groups would need to be adjusted so the game damages the correct one once the battle starts.
- Maps would have to be edited to make projectiles pass through low and high obstacles properly
- Hit and run tactics or cheesing enemies with obstacles would have to be acounted for
- New scripts for handling enemies dying when you kill them with single shot on the map screen. Loot, experience and other stuff
- Behavior for shooting friendly NPCs would also have to be acounted for, since NPCs ignoring you shooting them is not something I want to have.
- Shooting in friendly crowded locations would have to be acounted for.
And these are just things I came up with on the spot. Sure, solution to most of these can be quite simple if you compromise, but I want to come up with creative solutions to simple problems like these if possible.
I'm experimenting with top down grid combat system that I found somewhere on the internet, which would solve this entire problem, but I have no idea when that's going to get implemented, if at all..