In most PvP MMOs: Rogues takes 50% of the player base.
Meleers take 40%.
Casters takes 10%.
What MMO is that?
From my experience, 49% are casters, 32% are Melees, and 28% are Rogues.
My list of what classes overpower the others wasn't taught thouroughly through; I just wanted to give this simples examples I could.
If you removed frost mages from WoWs PvP, how much percent casters would it be? 0.1%?
Yes WoW itself got many casters in game. I forgot to say that i took old MMOs as an example when casters ran out of mana all the time. Noone wanted to play them.
rock paper scissor is the most boring stuff if it is applyed to class, but it is interesting to use in skills for sure. WHy would you apply such a system to class in pvp, it make no sense. I fight this dude yet i know he is rock and i'm paper, or the way around, what make this system even something to consider. You must be a bit dump to use such system for class; i"m sorry. It is no more player versus player it is mechanism versus mechanism; player have nothing to do here. If you want a player vs player system don't use rock scissor paper to balance class in pvp, its pretty simple.
But you can use it for skill all you want honestly.
In most PvP MMOs: Rogues takes 50% of the player base.
Meleers take 40%.
Casters takes 10%.
What MMO is that?
From my experience, 49% are casters, 32% are Melees, and 28% are Rogues.
My list of what classes overpower the others wasn't taught thouroughly through; I just wanted to give this simples examples I could.
If you removed frost mages from WoWs PvP, how much percent casters would it be? 0.1%?
Yes WoW itself got many casters in game. I forgot to say that i took old MMOs as an example when casters ran out of mana all the time. Noone wanted to play them.
This seems a bit silly:
Person 1: In most MMORPGs -- and by most I mean a few badly-balanced ones -- player distribution is badly balanced.
Person 2: But in WOW player distribution is pretty even.
Person 1: Yes but if WOW was less balanced, player distribution would be less even!
Ignoring the fact that many casters are viable in WOW PVP, obviously class balance has a strong correlation with player distribution amongst the classes.
Being a caster is only a bad idea in terribly-balanced games.
Why even waste time talking about games where bad balance is clearly the reason for something happening?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
rock paper scissor is the most boring stuff if it is applyed to class, but it is interesting to use in skills for sure. WHy would you apply such a system to class in pvp, it make no sense. I fight this dude yet i know he is rock and i'm paper, or the way around, what make this system even something to consider. You must be a bit dump to use such system for class; i"m sorry. It is no more player versus player it is mechanism versus mechanism; player have nothing to do here. If you want a player vs player system don't use rock scissor paper to balance class in pvp, its pretty simple.
But you can use it for skill all you want honestly.
Yeah. Nobody would play real rock-paper-scissors if you chose one of them at birth and that's what you were your entire life. Certainly nobody would play more than the first round.
R-P-S is only interesting as a game mechanic if it's a series of tactical decisions. And it's at its most interesting when there's gameplay around the visibility/prediction of what your opponent will choose (allowing you to adapt in meaningful ways.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
In most PvP MMOs: Rogues takes 50% of the player base.
Meleers take 40%.
Casters takes 10%.
What MMO is that?
From my experience, 49% are casters, 32% are Melees, and 28% are Rogues.
My list of what classes overpower the others wasn't taught thouroughly through; I just wanted to give this simples examples I could.
If you removed frost mages from WoWs PvP, how much percent casters would it be? 0.1%?
Yes WoW itself got many casters in game. I forgot to say that i took old MMOs as an example when casters ran out of mana all the time. Noone wanted to play them.
This seems a bit silly:
Person 1: In most MMORPGs -- and by most I mean a few badly-balanced ones -- player distribution is badly balanced.
Person 2: But in WOW player distribution is pretty even.
Person 1: Yes but if WOW was less balanced, player distribution would be less even!
Ignoring the fact that many casters are viable in WOW PVP, obviously class balance has a strong correlation with player distribution amongst the classes.
Being a caster is only a bad idea in terribly-balanced games.
Why even waste time talking about games where bad balance is clearly the reason for something happening?
The fail with PvE and PvP is that Blizzard tries to balance them both at the same time. Okay, next time add something in game that makes skills work different in PvE and PvP. It might be hard for Blizzard to do it if it isnt programmed, but i hope other MMOs will have this.
Btw: Most casters thats not frost mages are only viable with someone else. Its like playing a dual wielding warrior needing to be buffed all the time by a paladin so he can use both his weapons. No meleers will ever, let a caster cast a spell or escape. Or just remove that "cast a spell" from my text, casters dies within two seconds anyway. Usually its not even enough with lowered damage and dispells. A talent that reduces interrupt effect times by 35% if its offensive spells interrupted would actually help alot.
I dont know the state now, usually 95% of the casters in PvP are frost mages or FOTMs, sometimes frost mages are the only viable spec, sometimes three other specs joins in so i might be wrong here.
I would love to be wrong in this kind of topic, but man, if 9/15 of the players are frost mages and only one ele shaman joins a BG per 50 WSGs thats not the case.
And my bad for taking WoW into this. Sometimes 90% are warriors, other times 90% are frost mages. But in many MMOs noone bothers to join in as a caster due to survival/combo sells taking away their mana bar while rogues can spam it.
Really; Youre all right. I shouldnt take out numbers cause they always changes anyway.
"Rock Paper Scissors" is a good principle to guarantee at least that each class has some other class they stand a chance to beat.
I dont think it should be the end of game design, though. It should be the beginning. Once you have asserted that you have a good "Rock Paper Scissors" running, you should look out for adding counterstrategies. So maybe Scissors still beat Paper, but Scissors now has to play their class very effectively and even then the win will be only close.
One main problem with the whole thing is of course that to apply the "Rock Paper Scissors" principle to any game, you need an odd number of classes. With 2*n+1 classes, every class can have n classes it will have an advantage and n classes it will have an disadvantage. For an odd number, you need to find a second class for each class that truely is completely equal in power.
Ideally of course every class should beat every other class with a 50% chance, and the same should be true for well designed groups.
The fail with PvE and PvP is that Blizzard tries to balance them both at the same time. Okay, next time add something in game that makes skills work different in PvE and PvP. It might be hard for Blizzard to do it if it isnt programmed, but i hope other MMOs will have this.
Btw: Most casters thats not frost mages are only viable with someone else. Its like playing a dual wielding warrior needing to be buffed all the time by a paladin so he can use both his weapons. No meleers will ever, let a caster cast a spell or escape. Or just remove that "cast a spell" from my text, casters dies within two seconds anyway. Usually its not even enough with lowered damage and dispells. A talent that reduces interrupt effect times by 35% if its offensive spells interrupted would actually help alot.
I dont know the state now, usually 95% of the casters in PvP are frost mages or FOTMs, sometimes frost mages are the only viable spec, sometimes three other specs joins in so i might be wrong here.
I would love to be wrong in this kind of topic, but man, if 9/15 of the players are frost mages and only one ele shaman joins a BG per 50 WSGs thats not the case.
And my bad for taking WoW into this. Sometimes 90% are warriors, other times 90% are frost mages. But in many MMOs noone bothers to join in as a caster due to survival/combo sells taking away their mana bar while rogues can spam it.
Really; Youre all right. I shouldnt take out numbers cause they always changes anyway.
A quick glance at the top 3v3 arena teams right now reveals Warlocks as most popular, with mages trailing and a surprising number of Shadow Priests. Few if any ele shamans (but resto shams are most popular healer.)
So your perception seems completely off the mark (especially since warlocks were the longest running imbalance I've ever seen in any game ever; from year ~1 to year ~4 of WOW, they were always a mix of best-PVE class and/or best PVP class.)
Again, the fact remains that plenty of players play casters when the balance isn't screwed up. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with casters as a PVP concept, there are only specific games with specific crappy implementations of casters.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
A quick glance at the top 3v3 arena teams right now reveals Warlocks as most popular, with mages trailing and a surprising number of Shadow Priests. Few if any ele shamans (but resto shams are most popular healer.)
So your perception seems completely off the mark (especially since warlocks were the longest running imbalance I've ever seen in any game ever; from year ~1 to year ~4 of WOW, they were always a mix of best-PVE class and/or best PVP class.)
Again, the fact remains that plenty of players play casters when the balance isn't screwed up. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with casters as a PVP concept, there are only specific games with specific crappy implementations of casters.
I took the 9/15 numbers from battlegrounds. No warlock bothered going to battlegrounds back in TBC anyway, they boosted others in arena but they knew everyone would focus on them first so they just died like that. Mages can just get away easily.
As i said about dual wielding warriors with a blessing paladin, thats what arena is all about. Your class is crap if you dont have the right combo. Its like the old days with priest-mage-rogue combo. Rogue CC one target, mage sheeps another, and they all three focus on the marked target= easy win. I bet a copper coin that the viable spriest have to LOS 90% of the time in arena due to warriors huge crazy damage output against casters.
I just want to say, casters should own heavy plate meleers. Therefore, CC should last longer the more armor the target have. Thats what i call a good scissor-paper-frog-pen-whatever gameplay. Its stupid that both heavy armored meleers and rogues kills any ele shaman any day even if the ele shaman got good defensive skills and high armor.
Yes its damn true that players choose casters over meleers when the game is balanced in PvP due to their extremely easy and fun gameplay. Just stay in range and press one skill and take any target by surprise. Then every meleer rolls a ranger. Then the rangers owns the mages. Then the mages rolls high armored meleers to own rangers. Then the rangers rolls mages that owns the meleers. Infinite loop.
RPS is frelling stupid. Is a pawn inferior to a Queen in chess? No. In fact, a Queen is quite useless if you don't use pawns effectively to control the centre of the chess board. Similarly, instead of assuming balance based on class, think about balance based on the core mechanics instead. In your example of a tank, rogue, and mage triangle can be broken down in what each 'class' does: resistances (tank), melee dps (rogue), elemental dps (mage). What's odd here, is that in fact all three 'classes' have elements of each thing I listed. Tanks can do some melee dps and a little elemental dps via item procs. Rogues have some resistances abilities by dodging attacks. And mages can do melee dps as a builtin function of their own weapons (staffs and daggers) and a few spells (summons, or actual physical force spells like telekinesis). See how that breaks down? It's not easier to balance either on classes or on skills, but it's about giving options to players to plan ahead and use skills accordingly to negate the effects of another.
In FPS games, you don't want to engage a sniper with from a long range using a shotgun and you don't want to bring a sniper rifle to a close quarters situation.
As a most obvious example of RPS from a RTS game, in Tom Clancy's Endwar, tanks, helicopters and AFVs (or APCs) formed a clear three-way RPS with tanks crushing AFVs, AFVs decimating helicopters and helicopters being deadly to tanks. Artillery and infantry were somewhat on the side of this: artillery was powerful against all ground targets, engineers were good against tanks and AFVs and normal infantry was good against engineers. (IIRC)
RPS creates some variety to engagements. It doesn't need to be powerful, just a slight advantage over one and one weakness to another is enough. Just a touch. If the game was completely equal to everyone (abilities, equipment, map balance, game modes/objectives), all engagements would be more or less the same or the variety would be created by player skills alone.
Ofcourse bad RPS is bad, and I am not a fan of strict RPS either (I didn't like the all-too-obvious RPS in Endwar), but good RPS can bring something interesting to the game. Something to fiddle with. A new layer.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Maybe one should say that RPS is a better situation than just balancing classes at random without having any clear goal whatsoever.
As long as you have a RPS below your class concept, you can be sure that there is no class that is just utterly useless, and no class that is just hopelessly overpowered.
My main issue with RPS is that it's too simplistic and when inbalances happen (and they always will) group gameplay suffers from it since it's easier to pin point what's stronger and what's weaker, leaving inevitably to metagames with the same group composition over and over.
I took the 9/15 numbers from battlegrounds. No warlock bothered going to battlegrounds back in TBC anyway, they boosted others in arena but they knew everyone would focus on them first so they just died like that. Mages can just get away easily.
As i said about dual wielding warriors with a blessing paladin, thats what arena is all about. Your class is crap if you dont have the right combo. Its like the old days with priest-mage-rogue combo. Rogue CC one target, mage sheeps another, and they all three focus on the marked target= easy win. I bet a copper coin that the viable spriest have to LOS 90% of the time in arena due to warriors huge crazy damage output against casters.
I just want to say, casters should own heavy plate meleers. Therefore, CC should last longer the more armor the target have. Thats what i call a good scissor-paper-frog-pen-whatever gameplay. Its stupid that both heavy armored meleers and rogues kills any ele shaman any day even if the ele shaman got good defensive skills and high armor.
Yes its damn true that players choose casters over meleers when the game is balanced in PvP due to their extremely easy and fun gameplay. Just stay in range and press one skill and take any target by surprise. Then every meleer rolls a ranger. Then the rangers owns the mages. Then the mages rolls high armored meleers to own rangers. Then the rangers rolls mages that owns the meleers. Infinite loop.
Well again, the current reality of arenas and my own experience both as and against Warlocks in BGs during those early years pretty much disagrees with everything you're saying here. (Apart from Rogues vs. Ele Shamans.)
And in general I get the sense that this thread agreed that Rock/Paper/Scissors class counters are poor design -- and the reasons R/P/S supporters say it's a good system can all be achieved in other ways. So the idea that "casters should own plate" is pretty silly.
Classes should be balanced, with abilities acting as R/P/S, and the more skilled player should win. Class counters are poor PVP design.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
In FPS games, you don't want to engage a sniper with from a long range using a shotgun and you don't want to bring a sniper rifle to a close quarters situation.
As a most obvious example of RPS from a RTS game, in Tom Clancy's Endwar, tanks, helicopters and AFVs (or APCs) formed a clear three-way RPS with tanks crushing AFVs, AFVs decimating helicopters and helicopters being deadly to tanks. Artillery and infantry were somewhat on the side of this: artillery was powerful against all ground targets, engineers were good against tanks and AFVs and normal infantry was good against engineers. (IIRC)
RPS creates some variety to engagements. It doesn't need to be powerful, just a slight advantage over one and one weakness to another is enough. Just a touch. If the game was completely equal to everyone (abilities, equipment, map balance, game modes/objectives), all engagements would be more or less the same or the variety would be created by player skills alone.
Ofcourse bad RPS is bad, and I am not a fan of strict RPS either (I didn't like the all-too-obvious RPS in Endwar), but good RPS can bring something interesting to the game. Something to fiddle with. A new layer.
RPS is fine when used smartly. The issue is that asking players to choose Rock, Paper, or Scissors at class selection, and be locked into that decision for the entirety of their characters, is terrible PVP design.
The entire point of RPS is to create balanced (and therefore interesting) decisions so that players can exhibit skill and be rewarded for it.
If you're a Rock at birth, and never get to play anything but Rock in RPS games, that wouldn't make for a very interesting game.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I think everyone should be able to specc their character for any of the 3 things, no matter what class or race you play. Automatically making choices for the players make the game predictable and boring.
You should not just take a look on a character and see if you easily can defeat her or not.
R-S-P is a great idea in many ways, I can even imagine a combat system that works on it instead of hidden die rolls but the more static you make a class the more boring it gets.
I am in favor of classes but I think a class should be a specc, not a permanent choice. Games that allows a player to access a skills at the same time tends to be very unbalanced and boring but the same goes for games that have static classes that more or less make your character the same as everybody else you share class with.
Comments
If you removed frost mages from WoWs PvP, how much percent casters would it be? 0.1%?
Yes WoW itself got many casters in game. I forgot to say that i took old MMOs as an example when casters ran out of mana all the time. Noone wanted to play them.
Yawn
rock paper scissor is the most boring stuff if it is applyed to class, but it is interesting to use in skills for sure. WHy would you apply such a system to class in pvp, it make no sense. I fight this dude yet i know he is rock and i'm paper, or the way around, what make this system even something to consider. You must be a bit dump to use such system for class; i"m sorry. It is no more player versus player it is mechanism versus mechanism; player have nothing to do here. If you want a player vs player system don't use rock scissor paper to balance class in pvp, its pretty simple.
But you can use it for skill all you want honestly.
This seems a bit silly:
Person 1: In most MMORPGs -- and by most I mean a few badly-balanced ones -- player distribution is badly balanced.
Person 2: But in WOW player distribution is pretty even.
Person 1: Yes but if WOW was less balanced, player distribution would be less even!
Ignoring the fact that many casters are viable in WOW PVP, obviously class balance has a strong correlation with player distribution amongst the classes.
Being a caster is only a bad idea in terribly-balanced games.
Why even waste time talking about games where bad balance is clearly the reason for something happening?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Yeah. Nobody would play real rock-paper-scissors if you chose one of them at birth and that's what you were your entire life. Certainly nobody would play more than the first round.
R-P-S is only interesting as a game mechanic if it's a series of tactical decisions. And it's at its most interesting when there's gameplay around the visibility/prediction of what your opponent will choose (allowing you to adapt in meaningful ways.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The fail with PvE and PvP is that Blizzard tries to balance them both at the same time. Okay, next time add something in game that makes skills work different in PvE and PvP. It might be hard for Blizzard to do it if it isnt programmed, but i hope other MMOs will have this.
Btw: Most casters thats not frost mages are only viable with someone else. Its like playing a dual wielding warrior needing to be buffed all the time by a paladin so he can use both his weapons. No meleers will ever, let a caster cast a spell or escape. Or just remove that "cast a spell" from my text, casters dies within two seconds anyway. Usually its not even enough with lowered damage and dispells. A talent that reduces interrupt effect times by 35% if its offensive spells interrupted would actually help alot.
I dont know the state now, usually 95% of the casters in PvP are frost mages or FOTMs, sometimes frost mages are the only viable spec, sometimes three other specs joins in so i might be wrong here.
I would love to be wrong in this kind of topic, but man, if 9/15 of the players are frost mages and only one ele shaman joins a BG per 50 WSGs thats not the case.
And my bad for taking WoW into this. Sometimes 90% are warriors, other times 90% are frost mages. But in many MMOs noone bothers to join in as a caster due to survival/combo sells taking away their mana bar while rogues can spam it.
Really; Youre all right. I shouldnt take out numbers cause they always changes anyway.
Yawn
"Rock Paper Scissors" is a good principle to guarantee at least that each class has some other class they stand a chance to beat.
I dont think it should be the end of game design, though. It should be the beginning. Once you have asserted that you have a good "Rock Paper Scissors" running, you should look out for adding counterstrategies. So maybe Scissors still beat Paper, but Scissors now has to play their class very effectively and even then the win will be only close.
One main problem with the whole thing is of course that to apply the "Rock Paper Scissors" principle to any game, you need an odd number of classes. With 2*n+1 classes, every class can have n classes it will have an advantage and n classes it will have an disadvantage. For an odd number, you need to find a second class for each class that truely is completely equal in power.
Ideally of course every class should beat every other class with a 50% chance, and the same should be true for well designed groups.
A quick glance at the top 3v3 arena teams right now reveals Warlocks as most popular, with mages trailing and a surprising number of Shadow Priests. Few if any ele shamans (but resto shams are most popular healer.)
So your perception seems completely off the mark (especially since warlocks were the longest running imbalance I've ever seen in any game ever; from year ~1 to year ~4 of WOW, they were always a mix of best-PVE class and/or best PVP class.)
Again, the fact remains that plenty of players play casters when the balance isn't screwed up. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with casters as a PVP concept, there are only specific games with specific crappy implementations of casters.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I took the 9/15 numbers from battlegrounds. No warlock bothered going to battlegrounds back in TBC anyway, they boosted others in arena but they knew everyone would focus on them first so they just died like that. Mages can just get away easily.
As i said about dual wielding warriors with a blessing paladin, thats what arena is all about. Your class is crap if you dont have the right combo. Its like the old days with priest-mage-rogue combo. Rogue CC one target, mage sheeps another, and they all three focus on the marked target= easy win. I bet a copper coin that the viable spriest have to LOS 90% of the time in arena due to warriors huge crazy damage output against casters.
I just want to say, casters should own heavy plate meleers. Therefore, CC should last longer the more armor the target have. Thats what i call a good scissor-paper-frog-pen-whatever gameplay. Its stupid that both heavy armored meleers and rogues kills any ele shaman any day even if the ele shaman got good defensive skills and high armor.
Yes its damn true that players choose casters over meleers when the game is balanced in PvP due to their extremely easy and fun gameplay. Just stay in range and press one skill and take any target by surprise. Then every meleer rolls a ranger. Then the rangers owns the mages. Then the mages rolls high armored meleers to own rangers. Then the rangers rolls mages that owns the meleers. Infinite loop.
Yawn
RPS is frelling stupid. Is a pawn inferior to a Queen in chess? No. In fact, a Queen is quite useless if you don't use pawns effectively to control the centre of the chess board. Similarly, instead of assuming balance based on class, think about balance based on the core mechanics instead. In your example of a tank, rogue, and mage triangle can be broken down in what each 'class' does: resistances (tank), melee dps (rogue), elemental dps (mage). What's odd here, is that in fact all three 'classes' have elements of each thing I listed. Tanks can do some melee dps and a little elemental dps via item procs. Rogues have some resistances abilities by dodging attacks. And mages can do melee dps as a builtin function of their own weapons (staffs and daggers) and a few spells (summons, or actual physical force spells like telekinesis). See how that breaks down? It's not easier to balance either on classes or on skills, but it's about giving options to players to plan ahead and use skills accordingly to negate the effects of another.
Not very keen or rock,paper ,scissors thing tbh. Not keen on spending too much on balancing as well.
Of cours there are certain limits to this such as have to have a chance on other fighting other classes but it DONT have to be equal chances.
Almost every game has some form of RPS in them.
In FPS games, you don't want to engage a sniper with from a long range using a shotgun and you don't want to bring a sniper rifle to a close quarters situation.
As a most obvious example of RPS from a RTS game, in Tom Clancy's Endwar, tanks, helicopters and AFVs (or APCs) formed a clear three-way RPS with tanks crushing AFVs, AFVs decimating helicopters and helicopters being deadly to tanks. Artillery and infantry were somewhat on the side of this: artillery was powerful against all ground targets, engineers were good against tanks and AFVs and normal infantry was good against engineers. (IIRC)
RPS creates some variety to engagements. It doesn't need to be powerful, just a slight advantage over one and one weakness to another is enough. Just a touch. If the game was completely equal to everyone (abilities, equipment, map balance, game modes/objectives), all engagements would be more or less the same or the variety would be created by player skills alone.
Ofcourse bad RPS is bad, and I am not a fan of strict RPS either (I didn't like the all-too-obvious RPS in Endwar), but good RPS can bring something interesting to the game. Something to fiddle with. A new layer.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Maybe one should say that RPS is a better situation than just balancing classes at random without having any clear goal whatsoever.
As long as you have a RPS below your class concept, you can be sure that there is no class that is just utterly useless, and no class that is just hopelessly overpowered.
My main issue with RPS is that it's too simplistic and when inbalances happen (and they always will) group gameplay suffers from it since it's easier to pin point what's stronger and what's weaker, leaving inevitably to metagames with the same group composition over and over.
Now Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock...
Well again, the current reality of arenas and my own experience both as and against Warlocks in BGs during those early years pretty much disagrees with everything you're saying here. (Apart from Rogues vs. Ele Shamans.)
And in general I get the sense that this thread agreed that Rock/Paper/Scissors class counters are poor design -- and the reasons R/P/S supporters say it's a good system can all be achieved in other ways. So the idea that "casters should own plate" is pretty silly.
Classes should be balanced, with abilities acting as R/P/S, and the more skilled player should win. Class counters are poor PVP design.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
RPS is fine when used smartly. The issue is that asking players to choose Rock, Paper, or Scissors at class selection, and be locked into that decision for the entirety of their characters, is terrible PVP design.
The entire point of RPS is to create balanced (and therefore interesting) decisions so that players can exhibit skill and be rewarded for it.
If you're a Rock at birth, and never get to play anything but Rock in RPS games, that wouldn't make for a very interesting game.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I think everyone should be able to specc their character for any of the 3 things, no matter what class or race you play. Automatically making choices for the players make the game predictable and boring.
You should not just take a look on a character and see if you easily can defeat her or not.
R-S-P is a great idea in many ways, I can even imagine a combat system that works on it instead of hidden die rolls but the more static you make a class the more boring it gets.
I am in favor of classes but I think a class should be a specc, not a permanent choice. Games that allows a player to access a skills at the same time tends to be very unbalanced and boring but the same goes for games that have static classes that more or less make your character the same as everybody else you share class with.