No haha, there's no reason to suppose that everything was necessarily well-designed to be played intuitively. Just give it a shot and then look things up when you need to.

You are not alone OP. If I already spent a lot of time in a FM (or any game) and I don't have desire anymore to keep searching, I am going to check a walkthrough. After all, people made them for a purpose.

I have to add that I'm completely hooked on The Dark Mod:
https://www.thedarkmod.com/main/
https://www.thedarkmod.com/downloads/

Drop dead gorgeous - great game play and effects, comes with over 160 missions,
and more for download. - Some are the best I've ever played and it's all free!

That being said, it has a few drawbacks: Many guards are helmeted and can't be
knocked out, and worse their hearing and sight are off the charts compared to
Thief. Thankfully you can easily edit the Dark.cfg file to tone down their sensitivity
and I use the - spawn atdm:ammo_gasarrow and spawn atdm:ammo_ropearrow
cheats regularly - as well as noclip and god when necessary.

- My mission is to have a good time, and I've mastered Thief and don't feel any
need to prove myself for the game. - I try to get through a mission without cheats
and often do but have no hesitation if I get stuck or frustrated.

Unfortunately there's no forum for the game on steam so I created one in the
Thief1&2 group here:

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/groups/T1-2C/discussions/7/

Nothing there yet, but I'll be adding to it over time - reviews hints tricks cheats and
general discussion.

Imagine Thief refined to modern GFX and effects - including dynamic lighting - super
detailed environments from fantastic opulence to down and gritty - some maps are
in the 500mb range. - If you've never played it please give it a try, It's exactly what
I've dreamt about for years !

Here's a sample of game play just to give you an example of the quality:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6n6hJDoOLI

Opprinnelig skrevet av Baddo Beef Guddo:

Should I feel bad about occasionally looking up hints?

No, of course not. But, there's nothing which is more rewarding than figuring stuff out yourself in a game. Keep at it.

if you have been wasting a significant amount of time and haven't gotten anywhere, then you should definitely use hints to progress the game, or else you're just essentially wasting your time.