Rogue/Ninja Starting Class?

[Niwashi]

Terrible comparison. The entire Scions bit is the process of tying your Company affiliation with the Scions of the Seventh Dawn. Of course there were going to be 3 different versions of you joining the Scions, the main storyline continues from that point on with you as a Scion first, Company Member second. This is vastly different from having some generic Ninja trainer and Yugiri, who would be handing you the same exact quest, complete with the same dialogue and cutscenes.

That one's actually based on starting city rather than GC, but either way, the point is that the game was designed from the outset to have multiple different variations on the main storyline. If SE were adamant about keeping a single consistent story that everybody sees the same way, as some people posting in this thread keep insisting they have to, then we would have all started in the same city and even if we joined different Grand Companies, the difference wouldn't have impacted the storyline. (Though I think the only impact GC has on the story is the location where a certain airship crash lands.)

I actually think changing who the initial NIN quest-giver is based on when we reach 2.2 is an unlikely (though possible) thing for SE to set multiple versions for. A much more likely variation is that the 2.2 story itself would have two slightly different versions, depending on whether the ninja job is already in the game when you reach it or not (or whether you yourself have already unlocked the NIN job or not). But SE could set either one (the main story quests or the job quests) to have multiple versions. Each would only have to be consistent to itself, not to what other people have seen. Given SE's willingness to have multiple versions on early game quests, I don't see how needing multiple versions on quests later in the game would constitute a roadblock to them.

I see "trainer" and quest-giver as the exact same thing in this game. Regardless of who's giving you the quest, you're still gaining the rewards and new skills via said quest that they give you.

The difference lies in whether the quest giver needs to know anything about the job you'll be learning. The scholar quest-giver isn't a scholar (at least not in the sense of the job by that name), and in fact knows quite little about them although he's read a few vague references to such people having existed at one point in the distant past. In no way could he be considered a "trainer" because he isn't teaching us. He urges us to learn more about scholars because he's curious to hear about them from us. If anything, we're the ones teaching him.

Even for the Bard quest, I wouldn't say we have a "trainer" per se when the job is first unlocked. We actually go to a retired Bard who's gone back to being a minstrel in hopes that he'll train us, but he refuses to, being adamant about staying retired. He does offer us a bit of history about how the notion of Bards first came around, but then tells us that if we want to learn any of their skills, we'll have to do that on our own, as he won't show us anything.

Even when we do have a teacher for a job, they're essentially just proposing challenges for us. In the course of completing those challenges, we learn more about the job. But challenges can occur in a lot of quests, regardless of whether they were set in place specifically for the purpose of teaching us that lesson. The quest-giver can just as well be someone we just discuss these events with. Their main purpose in the story is so that we can have a discussion regarding what it is that we've learned.

1) Why would Yugiri suddenly show up when you're level 50? There's no point to this possibility, because it shows a lack of influence that Yugiri should have on the questline. She would be there at 30, and be the one giving you the job stone.

It doesn't have to show a lack of influence on the 30-50 job story. For all we know, the entire NIN storyline from 30-50 could be about trying to find someone who could help us better understand and make better use of these new powers we're learning. Finally meeting a qualified trainer and proving ourselves worthy of her training may be the culmination of that part of the story (with her training itself being the next chapter of the story once the level cap is raised). Influence on a story doesn't have to come at the very beginning of that story.

Lets not forget that there are abilities that you learn at 30, 35, 40, 45 as well. We not going to learn the abilities "on our own."

Why not? We do for other jobs.

2) ... Yugiri training Ninja before her compatriots have found reasonable security in Mor Dhona.

Ok, maybe we can rule out #2 as unlikely to happen. They can have variations on the specific details of how the story plays out, but aren't going to make major changes to a character's overall motivations and purpose. (A pity, as I rather liked the idea of a shadowy figure you never see clearly giving you vague hints that lead to improving your skills, well before you actually figure out who they are.) But yeah, 1 or 3 (learning on our own or from a different trainer from 30-50, then from her post-50) fit better with her story.

A couple of things I think people missed: <snip>

Thanks. Those help fit some things together better.

... points to Yugiri being the quest giver/trainer for Ninja.

I think it clearly points to her being a quest giver/trainer for Ninja. I just disagree on whether that necessarily has to start with your very first NIN quest.