I've intentionally stayed away from spoiler rich environments. Although I'll facepalm when I find out I can do 'something' long after it was possible it only makes me more observant. I didn't do this in other survival games and they were more like vocational classes following a curriculum than an adventure survival game.
That being said there are some things in Valheim that don't have an intuitive component and a player is unlikely to completely figure it out without external guidance.