The difference between what you are used to is that players had to be all these extra things to get the special armours they wanted.

Because no one is locked into a "fighter", "wizard", "archer" specific set player type, people doing things on their own will achieve far les skill advancement than if they focus on a particular set of skills.

IE, a hunter need combat and butchering skills to properly skill and harvest the animal, so they focus on those skills.

Also, to get to a grandmaster level in whatever you pick takes several generations to get into the top 1%

Basically, if you try to do absolutely self sufficient, it won't be bloody easy.

people will need to make money or preform trades for the things that they will also need, nobody will be able to master everything. so you will trade a sword you made for some furniture for your house. or some leather jackets for you to ride your harley Davidson with. so you are relying on yourself to produce things others will be willing to trade for. it could be as single as picking up herbs while you are out hunting selling pelts. so you wont be depending on generosity, yo will be depending on your own will to produce and trade.

skills will take more than one life time to hit max level. so sure people can try to be everything and play solo, but it wont work out very well and the quality of their crafted goods will be poor as a consequence.

From what I gathered you won't be able to be a good warrior, smith and miner at the same time.

You could possibly try doing all 3 things but you will most likely be beat by the people that specialize themselves.

What you are than still missing is, where do you get your food from. Your clothes. Other materias that you might need to be a smith that don't come from mining.

It is highly unlikely that someone will be successful on his own. Not even the guy living alone in the woods, since he has to get his tools and clothes from somewhere.

Aso, because there are no Classes in this game Warrior, Rogue, Wizard, and all the traditional divisions of their items are being erased.

In other words, You perhaps like being a rough and tumble PvP type player, but even those rough and tumbles had their fineries in life (Captain Jack Sparrow's is RUM and a jar of dirt)

So as you gain certain skills that you want to use to hone your family line. Yes, rather than have to start a new character flat and start all over, You have potentially had your offspring trained, and before you spark into your next heir you will have time in the akashic records to further improve your character. Extra skill ramps based on what you did in your lifetime to add to the ramps you have.

Those ramps won't give you the knowledge you died with, but you will get back to your previous level far faster.

You can also learn by proximity, but only if you are with family or have at least been trained in it once.

Also, there's a division of labour that is created that points straight to the fact that anything even semi complex will have a multi step proces.

Think of how many things a house needs: Wood, Glass, fireplace, windows, tables, chairs, beds....

now think how many different professions went in to even one of the items.

lumberjack, carpenter, mason, glass blowers, tailors ...

Yeah, it's complex, but it's far better than anythin around