Yeah the game design is always supposed to gravitate toward:
easy to learn; hard to master
because so often the game becomes overcomplicated and absurd.

In Elder Scrolls games where any character can do anything with no guardrails it gets convoluted very quickly.

The strategy of it does get quite a bit easier when you know you're supposed to keep your level in check and not try to do everything in the game. That being said I died dozens of times on that playthrough.