Right. First time posting anything here, so please try to bear this in mind before anyone eats me alive or anything. I write this in the hopes someone from Bioware's design team notices for future reference, since it really did stick out in my mind and actually got me to post something on forums about it with this hope - which is very rare for me in and of itself.
First some context. I've just concluded my first playthrough of DA:I and I have to say that overall I very much enjoyed it. It has its pros and cons like everything and in terms of its main story theme/music it errs moreso towards the generic side of taste (turns out 'time to rebuild the world' is not too different in actions than 'time to save the world'). But regardless of that, I had a good time playing it, I managed to enjoy it for what it was (still greatly enjoyed the elven part of the story) and can't wait to replay with another world state again.
However...at the very conclusion I must say I was completely taken aback when my choice for The Divine wound up being subverted right under my feet and Vivienne was made Divine over Cassandra. Now I could go into an angry tirade at this point, but I'm not that kind of person really. My first thought instead focused the blame moreso onto me, along the lines of: "Goddamit...which decision did I do wrong for this to happen? Was it just me picking Celene over Gaspard or something else I missed along the way?"
So I searched and found this post that illuminated a lot as to why this happened to me: http://forum.bioware...rst-post-12314/
Why, you might ask? Well, because I had the audacity of doing this: I chose to roleplay a liar in a roleplaying game.
See...my first playthrough was a True Neutral Qunari Mage, who was a lot more deceptive and cunning than most gave her credit (think similar to Fen'Harel, only with a value system closer to order rather than chaos). So when Vivienne first came along I RPed it from her perspective as: "Well...this is certainly a person of power, so it behooves me to keep her input in mind. But she's also pretty upfront about what kind of leader she'd make - her mistake. I'll just lie my ass off to her and appease her behind fake smiles (play her own game)." So that's what I did, picking choices such as "Oh yes - circles are absolutely needed! (and leaving out the whole 'ungrateful mage peasants' part whenever I could to make it at best a white lie), not really knowing where it would all lead.
By the time I chose mages to be conscripted, and hearing Vivienne applaud me, I got the distinct impression that I should be wary...was even moreso after I picked Celene, because I knew what a big fan of her Viv was (though I still felt I had to do it, since hers is the path towards the greatest stability - that fit in line with my character's beliefs of order preserving as many lives as possible, even if one has to resort to trickery like lying to a social climber like Vivienne). Which is why right after Halamshiral I was sooo relieved to see Cassandra and Lelianna be considered for candidacy.
I was like: "YES! All is not lost! Okay then, this is how I just need to play this! Keep lying to Vivienne flat out about how you totally see things her way and whisper her sweet nothings. But in the meantime be fully supportive of Cassandra with honesty attached and help her however you can." This made perfect sense in my mind, as it was all too true to real life politics. It's just empty words at the end of the day and it takes action for actual support to actually happen. So when the mission to support Cassandra came up on the war table I was like: "Yes! Perfect...I can lie to my heart's content, Cass is (at the very least) still in the game for this thanks to this mission completed.
Little did I know that it was already all but decided, that Vivienne would somehow throw all that action of mine aside, simply because the game tallied all my little lies to her and others, as if I meant them seriously! And why? Why can't I roleplay a liar for the greater good, Bioware?
The closer I got to the ending, the more worried I was where the moment to solidify and confirm your public choice of next Divine would come up. Then I hear Josephine say she's inviting diginitaries to Skyhold in advance, because we will win, and I'm thinking: "Ooooh this will be soooo SWEET! I wouldn't be surprised if all the Grand Clerics of the Chantry decide to attend also, I see Vivienne counting her chickens before they're hatched in front of them, and finally...I reveal myself publically to be the liar I am by giving my (finally) honest opinion to the Grand Clerics that Cassandra would be perfect and how mages have reason to be upset. Can't wait to see the look on Viv's face!"
...but at the party that didn't happen. So I just thought "Huh...well okay, I guess they ran out of time/resources for this. A shame since it really would be the perfect sendoff right before the end, but hardly matters I guess, since the Inquisition officially supports Cassandra thanks to that mission on the war table and I can't recall any action (not words) being undertaken in Viv's favor. So I guess it'll be fine."
Right.
Alas it seems, that everything I ever say to anyone in this game is always necessarily taken at face value by the invisible rule-lawyer gods in the machine, who forbid me to RP a liar for the greater good.
My suggestion for the future, Bioware:
1.) ACTIONS are the only thing that should usually count when it comes to your invisible storyline point counters in matters like this. You know how the selection flashes whenever there's a major choice in this game? Yes - those kinds of things. I'm actually fine with things like conscripting mages severely curtailing the possibility of Lelianna winning, since it does make sense in the context of the story to make it much harder for her victory.
But unless you get to address the Grand Clerics in the game directly, mere character hearsay cannot be counted like some invisible gamey counting board. What Chantry Grand Cleric cares what The Inquisitor said to one of their companions while she was shooting the **** with one 'Iron Bull' in the pub last night? How would they even manage to gather all of those specifics with such unerring accuracy in an age whose closest RL equivalent is the medieval ages? If they did, seems as if me working hard on Lelianna's spy network was nothing compared to the Chantry having access to the spy network called 'the game script'. 
2.) However, don't misinterpret my meaning at this point that I want this to apply to everything! For a counter-example, I really LIKE how Lelianna's hardening is done completely on the sly and a long way back. That's how people's values change internally as things happen to them IRL too, and I found that part to be wonderfully realistic, promptly taking my lumps that maybe she wouldn't have hardened if my Inquisitor wasn't so pragmatic back then and saying nothing to stop her. But I DO NOT LIKE the fact that the Grand Clerics are influenced by scattered hearsay of 'what the Inquisitor once said to me' as opposed to, yaknow, her official stance that she wants Cassandra on the Sunburst Throne via that mission at least, if not saying it to their faces.
Just something to keep in mind for your future games, Bioware. To conclude on a moreso positive note, a lot of people give you guys a lot of **** privately and publically, blinded by nostalgia as they are or because their expectations of your games have by this point become very warped by even more warped individuals on the internet.
But I'm not one of them. I like your games for what they are and for how I have yet to find storylines that moreso accurately predict the way human beings can react to extraordinary circumstances, in which they find themselves in (ironically enough, Cole's final personal quest and choice between forgiveness or acceptance is a shining beacon of this). I say this so that you will understand, why it pained me when this result of Vivienne somehow overulling the official stance of the Inquisition (who even got the 'Celene only remains in power due to her alliance with the Inquisition' ending) suddenly popped up at the end of my playthrough...
...because it very much so broke my suspension of disbelief in this story to find out that I could not roleplay a liar for the greater good. 
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