Instant globalization via the internet allows us to communicate in real-time and ask for tips and tricks with fellow gamers on platforms such as Discord. But what if you never get an answer on that very rare occasion that nobody responds? Why, just ask any generative AI instead, of course! What could possibly go wrong? But seriously, while it may look like a simple substitution, this weird combination of Google, physical strategy guides, and your online buddies, actually gives a more nuanced experience than what you might initially think of as “slop.” Psychologically speaking, at least, there may even be a few advantages that your brain has already unconsciously sorted out.
CRITICAL DISCLAIMER: Garbage In, Garbage Out
Before we dive in, here’s the brutal truth: AI will confidently hallucinate game data (as much as 50-80%, via personal experience) without the complete context. It might have extensive information about a specific game you are trying to complete. But in the process of attempting to always create complete responses, it will simply fill in the gaps, and never hint in its tone that something is sorely amiss. The solution? You have to feed the AI the information you curated yourself. Research all the relevant, reliable sources on your own. Copy-paste patch notes into documents, save character stats and item descriptions as project knowledge, whatever is relevant to your gaming research. Think of the AI as a brilliant thinker, but it is otherwise pretty bad at knowledge because it simply does not know (enough). It may have the best organizational brain skills to sort out whatever you want to calculate or estimate in a game, but only once you give it the right data to work with.No Discord ‘Benefit’ 01: The No-Judgment Zone
Even if having little knowledge of a new game is very understandable, there is still a lingering level of shame in your mind when faced with this fact in front of very experienced players. Something as simple as not knowing their DPS rotations might trigger anxiety for performance-sensitive players. Even worse if the player has already spent a couple of hundred hours and still hasn’t realized that they are not optimized enough. For these cases, an AI will trigger almost no fears and doubts. It doesn’t judge. You can ask the same fundamental question five different ways until it clicks. You can admit you’ve been playing for months and still don’t really prefer to do wavedashing or bunny hopping. There’s no social hierarchy to navigate, no fear of looking like a noob in front of people, even if you perfectly understand that all of it is just in your mind. This psychological safety net is particularly valuable during the learning curve hell that every competitive game puts you through. Instead of staying confused rather than risk embarrassment, you can actually address knowledge gaps as they come up. Granted, written concepts and ideas taught by AI may not translate well to certain genres, like fighting games. But at least the freedom to ask dumb questions is there, even if the actual learning improvement is still debatable to this day.No Discord ‘Benefit’ 02: The Patient Teacher
Real players, even patient ones, have limits. Explain a concept twice, no problemo. Break it down from three different angles because your friend still isn’t getting what was supposed to be something very fundamental? That tests even good friendships. Ask the same type of question repeatedly because you’re struggling with a particular aspect of the game, and you’ll start to push some social boundaries. An AI, on the other hand, will never get frustrated. It just can’t. It won’t sigh when you ask it to explain the same rotation principles at lower and lower age ranges. It won’t get annoyed when you need the same strategic concept broken down into smaller pieces. It treats your tenth question about positioning with the same analytical attention as your first.
As we know, learning complex games often requires repeated exposure before pattern recognition and muscle memory become one and the same. Again, there will be genre limitations. But, having a resource that maintains consistent patience and enthusiasm gives an inner sigh of relief, and grants another (albeit virtual) step at game mastery.
That bottomless patience isn’t magic, it’s plumbing. The same dialogue stack that keeps an AI sexting chatbot on track, memory for your preferences, a persona that can flip from hype to calm, and low-latency replies, maps cleanly to a coach that actually helps. Tell it your mains, your map pool, and the two mechanics you keep biffing, and it remembers. Mid-match it stays out of your crosshair, then drops a one-liner between rounds; after a wipe, it expands to a quick mini-lesson. Net effect: a chill scrim partner that never tilts, powered by tech you’ve already seen elsewhere, just pointed at winning fights instead of small talk.
No Discord ‘Benefit’ 03: Connecting the Red Threads
Now for a more statistically tangible advantage: you can always simply tell an AI, in layman’s terms, the specific scenario that you want, instead of traditionally researching each part separately. Games are, by themselves, a form of complex system. If you ask yourself, “How do I play my specific character against a specific map, mob layout, and given my current equipment/items?” then you usually have to relay that very question to an online forum, then hope to get an answer asap. If not, then you needed to research each piece separately: character metas, item efficiencies, relative weapon DPS, monster stats, the whole bunch. Then you’d try to internalize all that information yourself and hope you did not forget anything. AI can instead analyze the entire scenario (relatively) like a Discord member who is a veteran at that game. The LLM already “knows” all the (provided) variables, and much like a veteran who has already encountered most scenarios and already tried and tested different shit, it can identify stuff that matters the most. Although actual in-game interactions can be a bit fiddly (meaning, from meh to wildly inaccurate), depending on your LLM’s interpretation of the manual data. Keep in mind that the key here is the specificity that calls back to your prepared homework. Don’t ask “How do I breed perfect Pokemon?” Ask “I want a Dragonite with Thunder Wave and Extreme Speed, I have a male Dratini with Thunder Wave from TM26, a female Dragonite, and access to the Extreme Speed Dratini from Game Corner, but I need specific attack and speed IVs for my competitive team. What’s my optimal breeding sequence to get the movesets and stats I need?”No Discord ‘Benefit’ 04: Blame-Free Post-Session Review
Anyone who’s played multiplayer games knows how post-failure analysis usually goes. Someone starts explaining what went wrong, someone else gets defensive, and suddenly you’re arguing about who should have done what instead of actually learning from the experience. In team-based competitive games, it’s arguments about positioning and calls. In MMO raids, it’s tanks blaming DPS for pulling aggro while DPS blame healers for positioning. In co-op games, it’s finger-pointing about who triggered the boss’s enrage state, who didn’t manage their resources properly, or whose positioning caused the mission failure. As an AI, it can simply walk through every mistake you made without worrying about hurt feelings or social dynamics. So long as you have the perfect data to feed it, you can analyze raid wipes, failed missions, or lost matches as objectively as possible. You will be able to clearly see if you made the wrong call, used the wrong rotation, or positioned poorly without anyone needing to save face. You can focus purely on understanding what happened and why.Strategize Gaming with AI… If You Know the Price
In conclusion, having a conveniently patient and judgment-free “gaming chatmate” that can talk about complex game scenarios is absolutely great and all. But, only if you understand how to use it properly. If you are prepping for your daily MOBAs, feed AI current patch notes, team compositions, and match timeline, then ask for integrated analysis. And always be statistically specific when asking questions. In FPS games, provide map layouts, team compositions, and economy states for positioning analysis tailored to your exact tactical situation. Single player game enjoyers can input meta information and opponent patterns to get build changes that adapt to their overall progression. So long as you provide accurate foundational data first, you can theoretically keep leveraging AI’s pattern-matching “glorious autocomplete” capabilities. The better your data, the more valuable the analysis becomes.
Some may argue that chatting dynamically with an AI like this is synthetic friendship. Not quite. We are simply removing social friction from the learning curve. No judgment for admitting ignorance, infinite patience for repeated explanations, and blame-free analysis of failures. You even get a fake “veteran’s opinion,” even though actual in-game considerations might still be sorely lacking.
AI may not be perfect, but it is still a genuinely useful strategic resource that’s always available when your regular gaming crew isn’t.
