You can run at the enemy yourself, or I prefer to get my self position like I want and let the Enemies come close enough for combat to start.
As for getting the first hit in, you'll need to work on getting your Initiative boosted up. This is done best with Crafting gear.
Below is a post about why they picked this way to handle battles (I copied this from a post in Discord):
" It was a design choice regarding on how you start combat and the "agro" from enemies. We tested on our end and with the Demos we released the concept, and people liked it. But in the end it is fine, we built the game as is and we know it's not everyone's choice. " - Stefan TTG
