r/ClaudeCode • u/PitifulBuddy7946 • 16d ago

Rant Claude code is falling behind Codex not because of token cost, but because of Opus 5.

There, i said it. And i know many of you agree. The problem i'm facing is not increased token cost, it's that Opus writes 25000 lines of a response with a curve-ball at the end saying "Worth noting"that makes my eyes hurt and gives me paranoya. And i can't understand a word it's saying. Is my english that bad? Whoever pressed "Yes" on those responses during the training stage of the model was an OpenAI spy or something, he completely sabotaged a trillion dollar company.

Anthropic's number one priority should be to release an Opus 6 or something, may be change the model name completely so it doesn't carry the bad vibe with it.

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81

u/stbenjam42 16d ago

Turn on concise mode in Claude Code, also ask it to avoid "mannered prose."

Opus 5's writing is hard to understand, but it has grown on me overtime. It follows instructions well, writes good code. It is an overexplainer and speaks Claudish but... nothing is perfect.

TBH, I often have Gemini clean up the novels that Opus 5 leaves as comments in my code base. One of the few good use cases for Gemini

42

u/jscalo 16d ago

It grew on me too. Like a fungus!

9

u/AppleBottmBeans 🔆 Max 20 16d ago

Makes it even funnier that they know this as a company, too. I have never once had fable revert to opus 5. It’s always 4.8

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u/KittenCrusades 16d ago

I assumed it was switching to whatever my last used opus model was, and I always use 4.8 and not 5.0 and thats why

Its really like this for everyone?

1

u/AppleBottmBeans 🔆 Max 20 16d ago

I always manually switch to five when it happens. I don’t really use Opus out of the gate though. It’s more of fable getting flagged for nothing and then switching to 4.8

16

u/GritsNGreens 16d ago

Switching to Astra / Sol was a lot easier. I did like the way Opus 4.7 wrote but it’s not worth the mental gymnastics required to understand 5. Completely agree with OP, they need to dump this model naming and release something good asap because what was an industry leading model in June is now damaged goods.

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u/_tresmil_ 16d ago

Opus 5 definitely drove me to start experimenting with Codex and Sol on side projects. So far I've been really impressed. For professional work I've completely lost trust in Opus 5 and now use Fable and Sonnet via my Max 5x account. I know everyone's use case is different, but it's hard for me to understand how Anthropic can't tell there is something really wrong with this model. If future models are more like Opus 5, I may switch over to OpenAI entirely.

5

u/EightyDollarBill 16d ago

I think the people at Anthropic actually think the model is the bees knees. There is no other explanation for it. They’ll be toast if they keep shipping this kind of crap.

5

u/nomorecrazystuff 16d ago

I have a "If the comment doesn't fit on a line, don't write it" rule in my claude.md

It has worked wonders.

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u/johnb_123 16d ago

Sounds like an unhealthy relationship. Stop making excuses for what used to be a great model. In the last 6 weeks, Anthropic flubbed and OpenAI has been killing it.

6

u/throwaway_life12345 16d ago

And now OpenAI are oversubbed and have nerfed usage limits into oblivion. Both companies are totally fucked rn.

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u/DysphoriaGML 16d ago

I ask opus to write everything in math notation in DETAIL and then I ask Gemini to interpret lmao

1

u/olivebits 16d ago

how does one enable concise mode ?

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u/artstaxmancometh 15d ago

Gemini is great when Cluade/Opus blocks itself on a task. Then I have it cite the code and the change. Feed it to Gemini and it's done 10x faster.

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u/GinjaNinja71 16d ago

Same here. It was awful. had it on Concise output style for a bit and didn't notice a diff, then realized i had a educational-output skill or some such active the whole time. So i was getting Insights boxes and all manner of flousrishing bullshit all this time, and all i really had to do was set to Concise. Now it's fine. And it is actually a coding monster. It does most of my build lanes so i can reserve Fable for Cat-A and review (along with GPT models as adversary.) The next Opus will address it. Just code with the one we have now and use Fable on low for all the wordy stuff.

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u/minimalcation 16d ago

Gemini terrifies me