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Why does Opus 5 feel worse to work with?

mun-logadan.github.io

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Re: Why does Opus 5 feel worse to work with?

#71

Post by fny »

Just like with people you need to tweak your approach when switch models--especially with a major version bump.

4.8 was the intern who lacked confidence who requires clarification. 5 is the know it all intern who fills in your spec.

As such, you need to be upfront about what you need in your system prompt or CLAUDE.me and you need to discuss your spec more up front (e.g "is there anything unclear?")

You also need to keep in mind that the intern will change based on popular demand. Most people want to one shot, so that is the default mode. If you want something else, you need to push the model in that direction.

Re: Why does Opus 5 feel worse to work with?

#73

Post by 8cvor6j844qw_d6 »

Retr0id wrote: post #52
karimf wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This 100%. I was Anthropic-pilled. I had a $200/mo subscription and I only used Anthropic models. I was frustrated by the verbose output and the writing style. I tried ASD-STE-100, it helped a bit, but it's still too verbose for my taste. Then I tried GPT 5.6 Sol. It's night and day. I think Anthropic just RL too hard on coding capabilities and never calibrated or benchmarked the writing styles.

It's a surprising change from my perspective, because in the past it felt like they understood that Claude should be pleasant to interact with.

It's bad enough that I've seen dedicated skills to do comment hygiene scrubbing and consolidation.

Re: Why does Opus 5 feel worse to work with?

#74

Post by causal »

barrkel wrote: post #12

The single biggest annoyance with Opus 5 is that it writes too elliptically. Sentences that orbit a point, then jump to it like it's a revealed insight. Unnecessarily abstract phraseology. Constantly using inanimate nouns as the subjects in sentences in order to unlock variety in verb choice, especially when it helps construct a sentence where the real action can 'land' like a surprise at the end. It is definitely mo…

> writes too elliptically

> Constantly using inanimate nouns as the subjects in sentences in order to unlock variety in verb choice

Wow, what a great way of phrasing this. Thanks for word-smithing what I've been wanting to express for so long.

Re: Why does Opus 5 feel worse to work with?

#75

Post by rio517 »

fny wrote: post #71

Just like with people you need to tweak your approach when switch models--especially with a major version bump. 4.8 was the intern who lacked confidence who requires clarification. 5 is the know it all intern who fills in your spec. As such, you need to be upfront about what you need in your system prompt or CLAUDE.me and you need to discuss your spec more up front (e.g "is there anything unclear?") You also need to…

I literally just did this a few moments ago. haha.

I said "maybe think for a while on ideas and then give me a few options? " and Opus 5 still just did the thing, while 4.8 gave me options. Same exact prompt and context.

Re: Why does Opus 5 feel worse to work with?

#76

Post by netniuq »

MEMORYC_RRUPTED wrote: post #13

It's not even code for me, but the prose it writes. For some reason, the way Opus 5 "talk" elicits frustration in a way that 4.5 to 4.8 never did. Can't put my finger on why, but I've flipped over to Codex because what it produced wasn't worth the frustration.

for me it feels very similar to the trends already apparent in 4.5-4.8, just way, way worse.

Re: Why does Opus 5 feel worse to work with?

#77

Post by rio517 »

I literally just ran into this a few moments ago. haha.

I said "maybe think for a while on ideas and then give me a few options?" Opus 5 still just did the thing, while 4.8 gave me options. Same exact prompt and context. Really annoying.

Re: Why does Opus 5 feel worse to work with?

#78

Post by user43928 »

sevenzero wrote: post #69
user43928 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can turn off the browser use tool in the harness if an instruction not to use it for this is not enough.

I just want to start /claude in my CLI and start working. It worked fine before, why do I have to opt out of shit now? Opt in for this type of stuff sounds way more reasonable.

And I want it to verify my frontend in the browser, so there's that.

Re: Why does Opus 5 feel worse to work with?

#79

Post by causal »

karimf wrote: post #37
barrkel wrote: post #12

The single biggest annoyance with Opus 5 is that it writes too elliptically. Sentences that orbit a point, then jump to it like it's a revealed insight. Unnecessarily abstract phraseology. Constantly using inanimate nouns as the subjects in sentences in order to unlock variety in verb choice, especially when it helps construct a sentence where the real action can 'land' like a surprise at the end. It is definitely mo…

This 100%. I was Anthropic-pilled. I had a $200/mo subscription and I only used Anthropic models. I was frustrated by the verbose output and the writing style. I tried ASD-STE-100, it helped a bit, but it's still too verbose for my taste. Then I tried GPT 5.6 Sol. It's night and day. I think Anthropic just RL too hard on coding capabilities and never calibrated or benchmarked the writing styles.

Yeah I don't know that any of the benchmarks index on "understandability". I'm amazed at how Claude can produce a page of text describing what it did and it can take me a full five minutes to decipher it, often just to find it's something I could have expressed in a simple sentence.
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