Of course, I'm talking about the quest to save Empress Celene from an assassination plot. Before I elaborate, let me put a little back story.
Ever since DAO, we've been hearing about how The Game in Orlais is some sort of diplomacy to the death. At face value, Orlesian nobles act all sophisticated and tactful around each other. However, it's also an open secret that everyone are conniving and manipulative. Behind the scenes, Orlesian nobles are engaged in secret deals and treasonous plots. When you confront them directly, you have to be skilled at wordplay since they are masters of dodging questions and twisting your words. All in all, Orlais sounds like quite the intriguing place!
Now let's go back to the assassination plot on Empress Celene, which is supposed to be The Game at its epitome. The three main players that the Inquisitor deals with are Gaspard, Florianne, and Briala. Here comes the disappointing part. How does the Inquisitor beat these masters of The Game? By sneaking around the palace and stumbling upon some incriminating evidence. Because you know, it's perfectly safe to leave treasonous notes lying around, and to hope that accomplices would just end up dead. Yup, that sure is subtle; not to mention that it all boils down to "my word against yours".
I can't express my disappointment enough when all it took to bring down Florianne is by accusing her of plotting to assassinate Celene. It was worse when she didn't even offer any clever retort or otherwise try to defend herself. For such a high ranking noble to fail so miserably at The Game that was just pathetic.
While I know that you need 85+ Court Approval to succeed in exposing Florianne, the Court Approval system was pretty lackluster as well. All it took to get 100 Court Approval is spamming Eavesdrop whenever available, and finding random notes that Leliana can use to blackmail with. Actually talking with the other nobles and demonstrating your persuasiveness and cunning (which is what The Game is supposed to be) was not a big factor in winning them over.
I also like to compare this quest to The Landsmeet quest in DAO. In The Landsmeet, you had to go on various side-quests to gain evidence against Howe's (and by extension Loghain's) treacheries. And even if you manage to get all the evidence possible, what you say in the actual Landsmeet still matters. It's possible to have all the evidence and still not gain majority support of the nobles. Even though regardless of who wins the argument, the Landsmeet is still decided by a duel to the death, there was a personal satisfaction in seeing Loghain lose face despite all of the counter arguments he makes. So again, compare this brillantly written quest to Florianne who just whimpers and is unable to say a word to save her life.
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