As someone who has never made a game, I really want to make a tower defense game that fixes shortcomings I find in others - where would one complete beginner delve into Godot to accomplish starting to learn the system - there are a number of tuts on YT - one of which is ~11 hours long.
Can you make some suggestions to avoid/pre-empt any said headscratchings and frustrations?
You are going to scratch your head and be frustrated. Just keep going! Imagine your asking "I want to make a rock song that is better than the other rock songs. What youtube video can I watch to learn how to play the guitar?"
I usually recommend GDQuest on YouTube. Just start! Keep going! You'll figure it out.
Start with something small/easy to get the basic concepts and just keep going from there, like you'd do with any other skill. Making a Flappy Bird clone (for example) has become the Hello World of game programming.
Can you make some suggestions to avoid/pre-empt any said headscratchings and frustrations?