Yeah, my first was Bloodborne, Ididn't look up a guide but was on a forum where I had to be told how to level up and how scaling worked, I got a lot of help from the community come to think of it. However it's easily enough to play a souls game without a guide after you know the basic things like that. What I can't understand is how they are supposed to be 100%'d without a guide or how you complete many of the NPC quests. Demon souls is the only one I've not played so maybe the obtuse design is on the main path. There are people who told me they completed all endings of Sekiro without a guide, I can't see how that is possible for one of the endings which is incredibly obtuse mot mention one part where you have to ease drop on an NPC character on the main mission path, people had to have had looked that up. I'm almost sure From Soft leaks the solutions online among the community post release cause people have guides out way too easily too. The solutions hits day one.  

Yeah, it is starting to get easier. Magic spells are actually doing damage now and sword buffs are starting to become meaningful plus I can hold enough of them for them to be worth using on most enemies to level the playing feuld a bit. The last session I had last night was one of few deaths and more control over enemies in comat. The first 50 levels of the game felt like nothing was getting stronger and I was getting by just willing myself to persevere. Glad I stuck with it, never seen a difficulty curve that steep in a soulsborne before.

If I'm not enjoying a game, for it being too difficult or tiresome, then I use a guide and usually enjoy it a little more. If a game is good without, all the better.
So in general, good games are better without a guide (at least first playthrough or two, you may want to know secrets you missed later), bad games are better with guide. Except when game is bad by being too easy.

However, I also like to have a guide to know how long a game is, how far in it I am, even if not using the guide for any actual help. Makes easier to plan whether I'm going to finish this chapter today, this game this week...

I never thought of that, that's a life hack there. That's actually a really useful use for a guide, I can clearly see right now I'm exactly half way through Nioh 2. Thanks for the tip. 

Oh and nothing worse than a bad easy game, sometimes difficulty can make a bad game tolerable like with these streamer games Only up and benet foddy and what not. Terrible games, difficulty made them somewhat interesting.