Am I the only one?

[Jennah]

I never understood why we were supposed to like Hauchefaunt before he sacrificed himself. Or why he sacrificed himself. Or why the WoL couldn't take the hit in the first place, like the 50 or so we just did a few seconds ago. Or why we couldn't revive him afterwards. Or why the game treats his death as the worst thing that's ever happened to us, like we're up every night crying about Hauchefaunt.
I also couldn't stand the DRK quests. For more or less the same reasons - that the game is telling me I feel a certain way that I just don't. Neither as the player nor in-character.

But I mean, most of the Heavensward story was pretty good; and the mechanics and gameplay were at least as good as FF14 has ever been.

[SaberMaxwell]

I never understood why we were supposed to like Hauchefaunt before he sacrificed himself. Or why he sacrificed himself. Or why the WoL couldn't take the hit in the first place, like the 50 or so we just did a few seconds ago. Or why we couldn't revive him afterwards. Or why the game treats his death as the worst thing that's ever happened to us, like we're up every night crying about Hauchefaunt.

Separation of gameplay and story. Similar to how Nathan Drake can eat magazines of rounds in game but a .45 will take him down in a cutscene.
Separation of gameplay and story, but it's worth noting "Raise" only works on unconsciousness; in combat WoL is never "killed" unless the party wipes, they're only KO'd. Haurchefant was murdered outright (lots of jokes about him trying to block magic, at the time PLD couldn't block magic).
Aside the fact Haurchefant sacrificed himself so we could live, which itself is an act deserving of respect, he's the sole reason we got into Ishgard in the first place. He was the guy who stood by our side and vouched for our asylum when we were under suspicion for regicide. He had a base of operations set up at a moment's notice when he heard we were in trouble. There's a lot of undertones lost in translations, but he felt he was our best friend and he did a lot for us.

But if we were to add to it, maybe it's because we, the Warrior of Light, the Guardian of Hydaelyn, were at that point racking up loss after loss. We couldn't protect the Sultana, couldn't protect Ul'Dah, couldn't protect Aymeric, and now we literally watched Haurchefant die in our arms. I can see that wearing on any character's psyche when they're told it's their job to protect the world, but they can't even protect one person.

Maybe that's not how you view how your character would react, and that's fair enough; but they can't make WoL a complete blank slate without alienating just as many players as letting them react in very human ways to very inhuman events would.