Most of the floorings require flat and even base, clean from dust and dirt, with no oil spots, with fixed humidity and strength. The vinyl and rubber floorings, the linoleum, the carpet and the carpet tiles, etc have such requirements.
Presumably you have already heard the the laminate underlay is used for surfacing the base. And the underlay makes the uneven base even? Self-levelling ground coat is required in order to give the base the required strength and smoothness and to "absorb" the unevennesses.
There are different thicknesses of ground coats - 2, 3, 5 mm or more, depending on the type of the self-levelling coat.