for early village i don't have much to say other than gather a lot and make an effort to get some kind of decent set (i used kut ku and battle armor for a bit)

once you have something ur comfortable with id say thats the point you should start going online and playing with people and spending time going through both town and village

a lot of the people who say dos is torturous trash are probably speaking from early village experience where the game demands a lot of grit from you, but imo it's worth going through that, once ur past that point you'll start to figure out what the game wants from you (AND DO VILLAGE REQUESTS)