You took the words right out of my mouth... or rather out of my fingers which type my words.
ETC...
As someone who plays this game a lot through each of the patches, I sometimes suspect that some of the complaints come from earlier patches and limited experiences with the "glitchy" areas.
The problem you describe--attacking a frozen enemy while not being drawn into combat--isn't the norm. There are certain areas where it definitely happens, but that's not a systemic thing throughout every area of the game. In fact, how certain areas respond to that sort of thing has changed throughout patches.
The normal way things work in combat is that you're drawn into the initiative order when you make an attack.
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Another issue where the stealth approach can bite you, by the way: when you attack and hide, and then the enemies just go out of combat because they can't find you and heal themselves, meaning you wasted your resources.
