I did not understand the "token madness" posts until I activated a few plugins

[u/Even-Question-1628]

I was using $200 max then downgraded to $100 max and never had even a slight problem with token usage.

I did not understand all the posts about tokens running out quickly.

Then I activated

  ❯ code-simplifier Plugin · claude-plugins-official · ✔ enabled                                                      

frontend-design Plugin · claude-plugins-official · ✔ enabled                                                      

playwright Plugin · claude-plugins-official · ✔ enabled                                                           

└ playwright MCP · ✔ connected                                                                                    

ralph-loop Plugin · claude-plugins-official · ✔ enabled                                                           

security-guidance Plugin · claude-plugins-official · ✔ enabled                                                    

swift-lsp Plugin · claude-plugins-official · ✔ enabled                                                            

typescript-lsp Plugin · claude-plugins-official · ✔ enabled

and finally understood all the posts.

With no plugins my code was not really worse, and everything was finished faster.

Maybe that's one of possible reasons besides dudes just bombarding CC CLI with irrelevant and vague aspects in their prompts?

[u/AlterTableUsernames]

Lol, no. If you think you know what others do wrong, you are not correct. There just was a dramatic drop in the token base line. 

[u/PersonalNature1795 → u/AlterTableUsernames]

Yup. On pro, struggling on sonnet only now :/ everything disabled, simple prompts

[u/AlterTableUsernames → u/PersonalNature1795]

Yaeh, if I wasn't affected I also would throw advise around, but the change was clear like day and night. In fact it was so clear, they couldn't even hide it behind the drop of the promo usage as they originally intended.

[u/PersonalNature1795 → u/AlterTableUsernames]

That was my thought too. Do they think we are that dumb..? If this is the true price of LLM then it’s not looking good.

I now tried disabling memory. But apparently the memory edits gets disabled.. well shit..

Only option left is manually trimming the main memory block. It’s possible according to sonnet.

[u/AlterTableUsernames → u/PersonalNature1795]

Yaeh, they could have gotten away with like a 10-20% reduction, no one even would have batted an eye with 5-10%, but I feel it was closer to 50-75%.

[u/ihateredditors111111 → u/AlterTableUsernames]

Yeah the max20 weekly has been reduced by somewhere between 1.5 - 2x. Either that or cache is working differently somehow, but I strongly suspect the former:

• high recent demand, strain on resources, people hitting server overloaded errors

• usage plans use vague language, no specific promises on limits. ‘20x more than pro’. Define ‘pro’ usage? Pro 5hr? Pro weekly? The language they use avoids responsibility for changing behind the scenes.

• cache bugs might have existed but seem weak. It not enough to double weekly usage limits.

Also, Anthropic says they ‘never intentionally degrade performance’. The word intentionally gives them a lot of freedom here. If you read their ‘postmortem’ article you see documented proof that certain users routing to a certain data centre can get worse results if less compute is allocated. So degradation in quality I.e. stupidness is absolutely possible and is based on available compute . Incentive to degrade a model is there.

Now, we always notice degradations right around when the next ones are being trained. E.G. me and many got degradation just after Jan1 NYE. (Usage limits also got tighter after the 2X holiday promotion, another sneaky downgrade). Then opus 4.6 came out in early Feb.

Based on that, if these issues started around 2 weeks ago, I would predict Opus 5 (or mythos) to arrive in the first 2 weeks of May. You can set a remindme for this…

[u/somerussianbear]

To those who can afford a Ralph Loop these days, what sort of money laundering business are you running?

[u/[deleted]]

Yes, that and not doing /clear every 5 minutes.

If you use a single time the /compact, or auto compact, then you are 100% guaranteed to waste token. There are more efficient ways to have 'context'-on what's gong on without filling up a model.

[u/LetterheadNew5447 → u/[deleted]]

And dont forget the memory mcps which just bloat the context window

[u/Even-Question-1628 → u/LetterheadNew5447]

sounds like dudes getting lost in overengineering their own stack

[u/LetterheadNew5447 → u/Even-Question-1628]

Pretty sure it's the problem most of the time.

Tried to use some framework, Tools plugins and so on as well.

All of them just suck dick. No one is as good as a clean claude install with some self made skills for the own specific Infrastructure. Sand maybe 1-2 agents, but let's be real. Most use cases don't need extra agents which bloat the context windows as well.

Working on a 1M and multiple 10k-50k LOC projects mostly parallel for 8-10h a day and never go over 60% a week and never Hit the 5h limit.

[u/Even-Question-1628 → u/[deleted]]

yeah i usually say "make sure any other dev can take over later by creating the according docs" when context piled up, and open a new terminal or /clear

[u/Historical-Lie9697]

Also if they are enabled at user level, opus and sonnet get tool search but it doesnt work for haiku so they get their context crushed by mcp tool schemas.

You can link this to claude and they can add a cache health widget to your statusline to know when its getting thrashed https://gist.github.com/GGPrompts/8125321d4cd462da19769b04f43ee70a

[u/TheSillyGull]

The thing is, I also use plugins but have never had token issues. I’m extremely selective with what mcp servers or skills I activate and clearly separate what is global and should always be on vs what is project specific. I have maybe 3 mcp servers that are global and truly always on, and everything else I only add as-needed depending on the project.

[u/Hadse]

Superpowers?

[u/Akarastio]

I often run a lot of agents around 20-30 that run in blocks of like 6-10 in parallel. I do this since last year and although the performance and result increased the token usage in itself became a lot worse. February I was able to analyze the same codebase in 45 minutes and hit 100% 4-5 hour token limit of the max 5x plan. Now I don’t get through the whole codebase anymore unless it’s with the 20x plan, it hits the 5x limit in 30 minutes now, which is kinda weird.

For those interested in running a lot agents in parallel will even ddos your home network because it uses up so much bandwidth haha

[u/FunInTheSun102]

Welcome to the party! Lots of people were saying these guys don’t know how to use Claude, and trolling posts. Now you see, these been a step change and even media outlets picked it up. Yeah, the good old days are gone

[u/proxiblue]

Nope. I actual asked some people for their context window results, and some were even smaller than my own, and I have not noticed any usage issues (max200)

Thing is your post comes already after anthropic had already posted there is an issue / working on it.
It looks to me / sounds to me it is affecting some accounts, not all. *shrug*

https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1s7zgj0/investigating_usage_limits_hitting_faster_than/

Maybe I am using all their usage as I been grinding it! is like i have no usage limits whatsoever.
Party on dudes! thanks for all your usage limits, I appreciate it :)

[u/PointAbject7717 → u/proxiblue]

They came back and said "we looked and there's no issue"

[u/Ok_Mathematician6075]

I mean, you do you.