I didnt buy the expansion yet, what can i achieve without much hassle at end game?

[Deathmask]

To prepare for the expansion? I wanted to check the game before buying the xpac and im liking it but i wanna get to 50 before buying the expansion. Am i going to have problems to find groups for primals (hard mode)? What else should i be doing to start the expansion with the right foot?

[Vandril]

If you intend to buy the expansion anyway, you should consider buying it the moment you hit 50. You can only gain exp towards level 51+ if you have the expansion, and the level 50 main story quests grant good EXP. If you decide to wait until you can access Ishgard, you'll have missed out on a level or two's worth of exp.

Once you hit 50, honestly, there's nothing much left to "prepare for the expansion" with. One of the only ways one could really prepare for the expansion is to gear up, but the quests in the expansion prepare you in that way by practically throwing gear at you. Even the MSQ (main story quests) before the expansion gives you the gear you'll want to go into the expansion with.

Unless you intend to farm super amounts of gil or level other classes before moving on, then you might as well just head right on into the expansion. Due to the level sync feature, you can always do the level 50 content you missed later as it was intended to be done, so you ultimately won't miss much.

IMO, once you're sure you want to stick with this game for a while, you're level 50, and you have the money, then just buy the expansion.

[Vladislav]

like above poster said , msq -> like ? yes - > buy HW
no - > don't buy

[Garlyle]

You won't have issues finding people to complete the content (with a couple exceptions I'll note below) - there's content roulette that people still participate in because their rewards have been updated to be relevant for high level players. All storyline-related group content, including Hard Mode primals and level 50 dungeons and such - is in this.

(The exception is if you decide to tackle certain optional content, such as the Crystal Tower raids, Extreme Primals, or The Binding Coil of Bahamut. Crystal Tower raids can happen but queue times can be super long regardless of class. The remainder is high-difficulty content that wasn't terribly common to queue for to begin with due to the difficulty of it; however, functions like undersized party that were added with the expansion make it a lot more reasonable to actually find a group to tackle that content if you want to go out of your way to build a party)

[Mimilu]

like above poster said , msq -> like ? yes - > buy HW
no - > don't buy

I dunno, I think HW's story is way better then ARR's story, so saying get HW if you like ARR's story is kind of off. >w>

[Niwashi]

Am i going to have problems to find groups for primals (hard mode)?

I've done a few recently (since HW came out) to get my Artemis Bow and I was getting in within about 5 minutes at peak hours and 15 or so at off-peak hours. It's a lot faster than the pre-HW times I was seeing in the leveling dungeons with my DPS jobs. I'm not sure how much of that's due to the generally higher populations we've been seeing since the expansion release revived interest in the game, but it doesn't look like getting groups is going to be an issue except perhaps, as Garlyle mentioned, for some of the purely optional content.