@Gibbx I myself would enjoy doing that, even not being a hired bow or a mercinary. gathering materials to trade or craft things myself would be very useful
I also enjoy the challenge of killing difficult enemies and like to see my progress of it becoming easier over time due to me getting better at things like avoiding their skills or learning their resistances and damage types.
I loved playing a wizard in Perfect World International, because if you learnt the types of attacks your enemies used, you could swap your defences around to suit the situation and change your attack types to add more advantage. It is a good example of horizontal progression in a majorly vertical progression game too now that i think about it. lol
unfortunately tho, for years the devs of the game have been killing it, and now it is impossible for a new player to progress to being a badass without spending any money because of how hungry they are.