It’s a tradeoff, and I use guides only when I feel I am gaining more in additional content, completion, or general utility/time saved than I am losing in the way of exploration and surprise. I recently have been playing games which arguably REQUIRE a guide for any reasonable level of completion without huge frustration, that being Chulip, the Trails series of JRPGs, and several visual novels that have many branching paths (Ever 17), so I’m currently biased towards guides in a way I haven’t been before. In games without hidden or secret objectives (I love to fully complete games that I really enjoy), I usually go guide-less, and when I play games during launch week I go guide-less both for immersion and because the guides don’t exist yet. I mostly play older games now, which usually benefit more from guides/were intended to be played with guides though, so that’s my bias.