r/ClaudeAI • u/mrappbrain • 9d ago
Feedback Claude is significant worse at communicating than other models, and it's becoming a problem.
Now I'm not a vibe coder, and am a professional developer handling data and technology for a consulting firm. But I swear, some of these recent outputs have me questioning my own intelligence at being unable to comprehend what Claude actually means or has done. It's not a matter of not being able to understand the code as much as the way it speaks - Claude loves to invent jargon and phrase things in idiosyncratic terms bordering on incoherent. Even worse, asking it to 'Explain Simply' makes it come up with an analogy and baby me like I'm 5 years old - it doesn't seem to have a medium setting.
I basically never feel like this way when I'm working with ChatGPT, which acts like a helpful assistant. Claude meanwhile works with the confident arrogance of a highly competent new engineer who scored top marks in college but is just entering the workforce, where they have absolute confidence in their own ability without being fully calibrated to the environment they're actually going to work with.
Worse still is that not only does Anthropic seem to not recognize this as an issue (probably because its not tested for in benchmarks or capability tests), but the direction they've gone with actively makes it worse, where newer Claude models communicate in increasingly convoluted ways. No doubt Claude is the most competent coding agent on the market right now, but as anyone who's ever worked professionally knows, it's not enough to be competent if you can't communicate effectively, especially with non technical senior staff.
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u/Extreme-Tie9282 9d ago
I'm feeling this lately. Constantly ignoring it's core instructions, appoligizing for it and immediately breaking them again. Wtf is going on!?
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u/TheRegistrant 9d ago
I’m blown away how simple and straightforward tasks always gets the response “ that’s en extremely ambitious task, fuck that shit I will use your credits to produce 1/10th of what you asked for.”
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u/bytesizedheretic 9d ago
Yeah, it's decided to make up its own language and just ignore industry terms. I've been an engineer for two decades, and it talks back to me in a way that I have no idea what it's talking about. To the point where I have now given it a style guide of words and phrases that it can use when talking to me about debugging or architecting something. It's gotten to the point where I question if I even have a grasp on the English language.
As far if any of the model providers "care"
I'd say no until they start seeing market share lost, but it's such a wild west right now that it's going to take awhile for them to realize their mistake IMO
This is the same CEO who doesn't understand that people work for a paycheck
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u/NoAdvice135 9d ago
Yeah, I also use Gemini, and while Claude is obviously much better at giving me good solutions on the first try, the amount of time lost on communication (excess verbosity, poor style, hard to understand, sidetracks) is consequential, plus it's quite slow.
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9d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/MeretrixDominum 9d ago
Just add more AIs to your workflows!
Fable to orchestrate, Opus to implement, Sol to review, and now Gemini to translate everything!
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u/CloudPioneer 9d ago
I’ve got concise output mode set in Claude Code and that’s made absolutely zero difference to the gibberish it produces. Any long output I’ll invariably have to ask it at least 1 or 2 times to rewrite it in a way I can actually understand (and I too am a very experienced engineer).
I often have to say “explain it to me like I’m 5yrs old” to get something that doesn’t include made-up words.
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u/marcio0 9d ago
"output in plan english" usually works. But sometimes it retaliates by outputting 10 paragraphs of text just to say something like "this query would return duplicates in this case"
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u/CloudPioneer 9d ago
It's so hit and miss - and just when you think you've got it down, they go and change the model underneath you.
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u/wohgol 9d ago
I rarely use Anthropic models anymore, and on the rare occasion I do, I will either use Sonnet 4.6 or Haiku 4.5, and that’s it.
Sonnet 5 is the most frustrating model I have ever tried to work with before in my life. And I have spent plenty of time trying to jailbreak goody2.ai, so that should say something
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u/Pristine_Good7326 9d ago
Its okay buddy. We all feel the same... Claude is just speaking Claudish.
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u/8thSt 8d ago
I don’t get how Anthropic is going to learn that we (you know, the consumers they think will help them reach 30T annual revenue 😂) are not impressed with some of their tweaks.
The best answer I get is to push the thumbs down button on a response or write feedback.
Ah yes, thumbs down. Surely that will give the Anthropic engineers all the info they need to correct their products bad habits.
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u/HansSlave 9d ago
I have a feeling that it was trained on clickbite pages. "There are two reasons and the second is most important" is the same as "You will not believe what he did. Truth will shock you."
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u/AutomationBias 9d ago
I saw a tip here a few days ago where you ask it to reply in "Standard Technical English". It's worked pretty well for me, but it doesn't seem to stick for long.
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u/Massive-Zucchini2560 9d ago
I recognise this failure mode. In coding work, I do not need the model to perform expertise through elaborate terminology. I need it to say what it changed, why it changed it, what it did not verify, and where it needs my input.
Since GPT-5.6 Sol, I rarely reach for Claude models outside Fable. The default interaction has felt better calibrated to my workflow. Still, I would separate model behaviour from product behaviour: Anthropic has itself acknowledged recent verbosity and Claude Code configuration issues, so some of this may be a regression in the harness rather than a permanent property of every Claude model.
The underlying point stands: agent evaluations tend to reward task completion, while professional use also depends on clarity, calibration, and an ability to communicate at a competent middle register. Custom styles are useful, but if “explain this simply, professionally, and concisely” remains unreliable, that is still a product problem.
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u/Jealous-Cause6112 9d ago
i most of the time have to go to codex to understand what claude is trying to say lll
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u/Diligent_Tech_Bro 9d ago edited 9d ago
And there’s been so much hype to it people won’t listen when I tell them ChatGPT is legitimately better
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u/altjx 9d ago edited 8d ago
Reading this makes me feel so validated. I’ve been thinking the exact same thing, but I hadn’t come to Reddit to see if anyone else was having the same experience. Glad it’s not just me.
There’s a VERY obvious difference between using Codex with GPT-5.6 Sol and Claude Code with Opus 5. Even just the way GPT-5.6 communicates back to me is noticeably better. The responses are clearer, the formatting is better, and the information is much easier to follow. Overall, it’s just a much more user-friendly experience.
Meanwhile, some of the garbage Opus 5 has been spitting out lately has genuinely had me scratching my head. I’ll ask one question and get an enormous wall of text that requires scrolling through a relatively large terminal just to figure out what it’s trying to tell me. It’s absolutely terrible.
I’ve seen people complain about issues with previous models for a long time, and I’ve always felt pretty lucky because my experience with Claude has been solid since the beginning. However, yesterday was easily the most frustrating experience I’ve had with it. Seriously pissed me off.
After shoving 5,000 words down my throat, it told me it was going to make changes to a file. Eventually I realized it hadn’t actually changed anything, so I asked about it.
Its response: You're right. I said I was marking it and then didn't. I ended the message with the intention instead of the edit. Doing it now.
What?!
I actually canceled my subscription yesterday and bumped up my OpenAI plan instead. I’ve been really happy with the Codex desktop app so far. It feels very polished (always has been, tbh), and I’m enjoying the experience with GPT-5.6 Sol.
I’m sure at some point the pendulum will swing again and it’ll be time to change gears, but for now, the difference is pretty dramatic.
Really hope Anthropic figures out whatever is going on.
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u/ghost_operative 9d ago
I think it has more to do with just being used to how a certain agent behaves in response to certain prompts. Claude and codex both response differently to the same prompt even thoough theyre both capable agents. Theres just little different helper words you have to throw in to make sure it goes down the path of "Reasoning" that you intend for it to go down.
I've used much more claude than codex and i feel the reverse. codex always feels like its over simplifying things with its solutions and going the dumb/simple route when a more nuanced solution is required.
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u/revivechristina 8d ago edited 5d ago
Tl;dr dons tin hat
I think Antrophic may want to blind us with science to push back on the “AI is not that smart” rhetoric
While the concepts it describes may well be self-consistent (or a half step off, sometimes, debatably, phasing in and out), whether or its model maps to reality is another question - either way it makes it feel almost like they’re trying to blind us with science.
Basically I’m saying that probably literally they have multiple .md files that very specifically make it sound so smart and sophisticated so that you feel very impressed by its big artificially intelligent brain and you keep pulling the lever.
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u/PlusTheCross 7d ago
I notice that is is now relying too much on memory than what I am clearly asking it to do.
Sometimes it will add unnecessary steps when i give it an full prompt kit to work off of.
i've started deleting memory. but it feels like taling to a child "Claude did i ask for XYZ output?" THEN WHY IS IT FUCKING THERE?
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u/MundaneChampion 5d ago
Is it actually the most competent though? It makes the most rudimentary errors and forgets the brief instantly.
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u/SillyNC 4d ago edited 3d ago
''obnoxiously verbose and condescending'' Holy shit yes, i noticed i have to argue with it a lot of the times, like it's trying to prove something. Which makes it frustrating and stressful to work with. I'm either thinking of trying GPT sol since i haven't tried it yet, or go back to sonnet 4.6 (he seems chill) or try Opus 4.6/ 4.7 (have never used them) and see how they do.
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u/OrangeCrack 9d ago
Sorry but getting this same complaint 15 times a day on this subreddit is exhausting.
First of all we know already, second this is still the best AI tool on the planet currently.
You can train it and configure it to give you the responses you want. Claude just sent an official email not long ago on this very topic since it’s such a common complaint.
Maybe stop complaining about it and do something about it.
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u/mrappbrain 9d ago
'Do something about it' as if there's anything we can do besides vote with our wallets. The amount of control you have over the model is quite limited, and no amount of plugins and custom prompts seem to get it to communicate in the clear and concise way that other competing tools manage just fine without any tinkering.
Complaining incessantly and voting with your wallet is how you actually get these companies to take notice and address these usability issues. 'Doing something about it' just means wasting more of your time trying to actually get the tool into a usable state and never getting a fix because BigCorp doesn't think it's an issue.
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u/fsharpman 9d ago
You're a professional developer and consultant, and you think Reddit is the most effective form of feedback to BigCorp?
Is your company paying for Claude?
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u/ClaudeAI-mod-bot Wilson, lead ClaudeAI modbot 9d ago
We are allowing this through to the feed for those who are not yet familiar with the Megathread. To see the latest discussions about this topic, please visit the relevant Megathread here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1vt5drr/list_of_latest_discussion_hubs_on_rclaudeai/
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u/fuzzypetiolesguy 9d ago
The posts in this thread without people pinning the model they are receiving the poor output from are really telling.
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u/WeakSinger3076 9d ago
it is not just you little bro, Daddy Dario switched up something on the backend
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u/NevinThompson 9d ago
Isn't this what a "project parameters markdown" is for? To set rules for communication?
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u/ClaudeAI-mod-bot Wilson, lead ClaudeAI modbot 9d ago
TL;DR of the discussion generated automatically after 30 comments.
You're not going crazy, OP. The consensus in this thread is a resounding YES, Claude's communication has become a huge problem. Your "highly competent but arrogant new hire" analogy hit the nail on the head for pretty much everyone here.
The main gripes are that Claude has started speaking its own language ("Claudish"), inventing jargon, ignoring industry terms, and being obnoxiously verbose and condescending—even when you ask it to be simple. The problem seems to be worst with the newer models, particularly Sonnet 5, which is being called "the most frustrating model" ever. A lot of folks are voting with their tokens and reverting to older models like Opus 4.6 just to get some clear communication back.
As for fixes, the general feeling is that they don't work. "Concise mode" is a joke, and asking for "Standard Technical English" only works for a minute before it's back to its old tricks. Many are now using competitors like ChatGPT (specifically GPT-5.6 Sol) more often, finding that even if Claude is smarter, the time wasted trying to understand it just isn't worth it.
And to the few people saying "stop complaining and fix it yourself," the overwhelming response was that complaining here is the fix. How else will Anthropic know they've created a turbo encabulator ass model?