for reference here are the last two replies on old video https://pastebin.com/cwWmVjE5 and https://pastebin.com/1ppVgwhE

and now i'll go deeper then:

The game has a horizontal power curve, you do not grow infinitely more powerful than an "untrained" player. It is not a vertical power curve like most MMORPGs. You can defeat someone via your gameplay rather than via your stats. Even if you jump onto an "untrained class"

Swapping a character is not a trivial task: you physically have to discover and travel to a specific place on a large world map to do so. Vessels are generally not locked and can be discarded freely. The only places they *are* locked on specially on the 'zero import' worlds where no one starts with anything being brought in.

There is also a large amount of active progression on a character outside the passive training skill trees: I don't think you have any idea about the amount of time it takes to actively level up your character via the sacrifice leveling system, nor about the number of hours it would take multiple people to harvest and craft the gear in the player driven economy for that character to be effective (also including the discipline runestone subclass system of capturing and binding thrall spirits)

Or the fact that more vessels will require more food supplies to be effective as well, especially in the game's winter.

Or even how you would juggle the storage of your gear and other items for multiple characters at once in a game with full loot and very limited and local bank systems in forts/keeps that can be captured by other players. Your inventory and banks are bound to your account, not to a vessel, and you cannot carry a huge amount at once (which again would be a huge risk in a game with inventory looting on death)

Regarding non VIP and VIP flexibility of classes:

Specialisation deeper into the trees is not actually mandatory and it is up to the player the rate to which they dive in. The benefits earlier in the tree are about the same power level as the more specialised options deeper in are.

if we look at say the branching class trees for a non VIP player:

Class basics [trains all classes at once]

Fighter [trains 4 classes at once]
 -Chivalry [trains 2 classes at once]
 -Barbarian [trains 2 classes at once]

Mage [trains 4 classes at once]
-Arcane [trains 2 classes at once]
-Divine [trains 2 classes at once]

Rogue [trains 3 classes at once]
-Mercenary [trains 2 classes at once]
-Scoundrel [trains 1 class at once]

They can easily train to be equally effective in 3-4 classes at once. There is nothing stopping you focusing on the 'fighter' branch rather than choosing to progress to the next level of the tree branch.

Even if they jump to the next level they would still be training 2 classes at once [scoundrel is currently 1 class until they release the next 'Bard' class]

e.g. Mage > Divine [trains 2 classes at once]

Regarding 'vessel slots' again - your vessel is locked to a race - not a class. You can actually freely change the class [via a physical location requiring a large travel time]. e.g. you can take your wood-elf vessel and switch between the classes that that race can play using only "the one vessel slot"

As we've touched on before: the eternal kingdoms are player housing/social/trading hubs and the store elements are cosmetic fluff. There are not "leaderboards", just the fact that yea people might want to see cool/nice things there and visit - but this is so outside the actual game loop that happens in the Campaign worlds (aka where fighting takes place)