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I was just curious, what was endgame like in FFXIV 1.0 and did anyone hear what in store for FFXIV:ARR endgame. I mean with all these things that promote leveling up in a quick manner in ARR I was wondering what can we except at the lvl 50 cap? I mean with the Duty Finder you don't really need a Free Company to do any of the Dungeons or Guildheist. Beside HNM and Free Company Housing what else do you need a FC for?
I'm not a Legacy Player, so I can't answer about the endgame content, but the level cap for ARR will be Level 35. For now, only Legacy Players will be Level 36-50.
Edit: Apparently this is only during Beta and you will be able to reach Lvl 50 during full release. My bad.
Endgame in FFXIV 1.x
1. Dzamael Darkhold (instanced dungeon, eight man)
2. Cutter's Cry (instanced dungeon, eight man)
3. Aurum Vale (instanced dungeon)
4. Hamlet (instanced half-hour event, three locations)
5. Good King Moggle Mog XII (primal battlefield)
6. Ifrit (primal battlefield)
7. Garuda (primal battlefield)
8. Skirmish (instanced dungeon, four members?)
9. Nael van Darnus Hard Mode (1.x only, will not return for 2.0)
I never did Skirmish and know very little about it. My understanding is that it was a string of battles against weaker versions of bosses from other dungeons and NMs. The rewards--materia meld-able weapons--were largely underwhelming when compared against primal weapons. I haven't looked to see if they're more viable in version 2.0. I'll look into that, now that I'm curious about it.
Edit: The skirmish weapons have two material slots, and their item level is 52, which means that they can use Tier III materia. Their base damage is lower than any of the primal weapons, and their base stat bonuses don't compare to primal weapons and still won't even after melding two Tier III materias onto it. They'll be decent starter end-game weapons, and a step up from most anything crafted, but you're probably better off chasing primal weapons at level 50.
In addition, the relic weapons quest invited you to repeat certain endgame content basically on hard-mode. It required speed runs of Hamlet, Cutter's Cry, and Aurum Vale as well as defeating Garuda (difficult) and Ifrit Extreme (really difficult).
2.0 will see all of the above (excepting Nael van Darnus hard mode, which was story-related) returning, if not in the exact form. We can expect that the dungeons will probably be re-designed, and they've said that Hamlet will be a large-scale FATE event rather an instanced half-hour event, which makes sense as it was basically a smaller-scale Besieged (if you're familiar with FFXI) which required crafters and gatherers to succeed. There will also be new additions to endgame at launch:
1. Titan (primal battlefield)
2. The Crystal Tower (instanced dungeon, 24-man)
3. The Great Labyrinth of Bahamut (instanced dungeon, 24-man)
4. Wandering Primals
5. High-Level FATEs
The wandering primals will be the same primals from the eight-man battlefields except scaled up in power. When defeated (requiring an entire free company), that free company gains the ability to summon the defeated primal once. The entire world's weather will change to reflect that the primal has been summoned (presumably fire in the sky kind of thing when they summon Ifrit), and then the primal will be released into the world again for others to defeat. This is probably the closest thing to HNMs that FFXIV will have. As for the high-level FATEs, we don't know much about them except that they will be around.
In the future, they'll be adding more primals. Confirmed as part of the lore already are Ramuh, Shiva, and Leviathan. There is no word yet on when they will be added, but probably later and probably one at a time. I'm sure that we can eventually expect primals beyond that. I'm sure that the first expansion (planned for a year after launch, I believe) will bring more dungeons and battlefields, but they expect major content updates every two months, some of which will likely bring new endgame events as well.
As for free companies, you don't need one at all, although I imagine that the Crystal Tower and The Great Labyrinth of Bahamut will be very difficult to tackle through the Duty Finder. Additionally, endgame events will have trophies that can be displayed in Housing (which is, at launch at least, exclusive to Free Companies). Defeat Ifrit? Get an item (his horns) which can be crafted into a trophy to display above your mantle. Also, because free companies are the only way to get player housing until personal housing is later added through a patch, being part of a company will be the only way to get the bonuses from housing.
Edit: I'd also like to clarify that the level 35 cap is only for beta, and I believe that it will be lifted for the fourth phase (which is the open beta).
You said wandering Primals the only thing that going to be consider an HNM, but what about the videos showing a Fafnir flying away or a huge behemoth? You think those are part of the High lvl fates or Dungeon? The game fun and quick pace and the story looks really good, but end-game stuff at the moment looks dry, but I guess that because they really haven't announce that stuff yet. Also I rather organize play to complete the 24 man stuff, but what stopping me from doing duty finder to just try to complete stuff. I loved beating Kirin, JoL, dynamis-Xarcarba with my LS for the first time. If duty finder was available I think it would be doable to do Kirin and JoL with it, but not dynamis-Xarcarba (unless you throw the max people at it).
Behemoth, at least, has been referred to as a FATE. I imagine that Fafnir will be the same. There won't be competitive HNM camping like there was in FFXI.
I don't think anything is stopping you from using the Duty Finder to complete anything, but frankly, given that they've said that The Crystal Tower and the Great Labyrinth of Bahamut will be very difficult, I don't anticipate being able to successfully use the Duty Finder to put groups together for them from scratch. Maybe using the Duty Finder to fill out some extra people (say you have 20 and need four fill-ins), but generally I think they'rep probably going to require too much coordination to get things going.
Frankly, I plan on avoiding using the Duty Finder whenever possible. It only took one person to screw up an Ifrit run in 1.x, and Ifrit is a pretty straight-forward fight. Garuda and the dungeons (namely Cutter's Cry and Aurum Vale) were much, much more difficult. Automatic pairings are always a gamble, and frankly I don't have enough time to play that I'm willing to risk bringing in somebody who has no idea what they're doing unless I absolutely have to. I'd rather be part of a decently sized free company to at least be able to draw a base of players whose experience and competence I'm sure of before filling out holes with the Duty Finder if necessary.
Fat Chocobos is looking to be one of the largest Free Companies and Linkshells on Sargatanas at the moment, so if enough people stick around we shouldn't be short on people looking to party up. Whether people like Zach have the patience to teach them... well, that's another story. ;) You'll be fine with the likes of myself, though. I can watch people fail over and over but so long as they're capable of learning slowly, that's better than not learning at all because nobody gives them a chance.
I won't be part of the Fat Chocobos free company (just the linkshell), but I'll certainly help out in the free time I have if you need extra men to run stuff. I don't mind teaching new players, I just prefer to separate teaching runs from runs when I'm going in knowing I want the clear.