It was off-putting due to the overwhelming number of creature abilities.

There is such a problem, and the reason is that they meticulously detailed every status in the creature abilities – living, undead, flying, water resistance, and other unnecessary stuff.
In my opinion, the main problem remains unresolved – the idiotic division of units into tiers (core-elite-champion). As a result, all units of a similar tier are the same, have identical stat increases, deal the same damage to each other, and bash each other for ten years, while ranged units in this system are simply no-damage dealers. Any battle boils down to abusing certain abilities and slowly clearing the battlefield with a "fork."
It's strange that the developer made concessions after the whining of old-school fans, returning resources and removing the conversion of dwellings and castles (?), but left this mess. Apparently, they still believe in the genius of this system, invented by some strange, lisping role-playing vice president of the department of fat cats, who is obsessed with "racial integrity," adorns skeletons with trinkets, and wants "every unit to have a place."
By the way, the skill wheel is no different from the columns and rows in Heroes 6.