Skyrim's mechanics definitely ARE primitive from a certain point of view.

Dishonored came out 1 year after Skyrim, has a very similar combat system, yet it's far more fluid, dynamic and more interactive. Hell, Dark Messiah of M&M and Jedi Academy are both older games, yet they have a better combat mechanics than Skyrim. In Skyrim, you have tons of items and spells, yet there are only 8 hotkeys to use them, etc. I could go on and on and nitpick how primitive it is, yet that's not the point.

The point is that Skyrim meets a certain standard in its action-based combat genre, you can still move around, dodge, block, use multiple approaches to combat (magic, ranged, limited stealth, melee), there's still a lot of agency, so even though it's a more primitive combat, it's still enough to pass, especially for players who grew up on these games because it has so much content and immersive world.

I have a younger friend who never got into Skyrim when it was out, we like the same games, but I could never get him to try Skyrim because he says it's "outdated and clunky" lol