Its not the customers/consumers concern or problem, what professional developers have to deal with.
But the buck does come from, and stop, with them.
If a customer/consumer doesnt like the product or its development, they have two options:
1) Complain
2) Stop using the product
I strongly discourage anyone from "attacking" customers/consumers who are excercising the first option, because that just urges them to instead therafter select the second.
I agree that a "bugfix" dedicated patch pass should be an urgent priority before ESL.
In many ways, that the game functions, as bugfree as possible, takes priority over balance.
Having said that, if you look at patch history, each one contains bugfixes. Its a gradual process.
What is unfortunate though, is the apparent rate at which new bugs are also appearing.
Sometimes culminating in a 1 step forward, 2 steps back situation.
Ive also noticed a concerning degree of necessary fixes to really silly things recently that should not have gone live, or wrong, in the first place. Really elementary things, like the discovery that Acceleration stat was being completely ignored, which I found particularly disconcerting.
If Relic has the resources, I would strongly urge more professional testing, either by employing more testers, or by improving and making more efficient and directed the testing process so as to ensure, as much as possible, that bugs or unintended numerical value accidents are detected as early as possible so there is time to address them.
Also, with all due respect, Devs should perhaps pay a little more attention to what values they are inputting.
Reading between the lines on patch notes, there is a bit of laziness and too much human error creeping in.
Double and triple check, that you got it right, before submitting it finally and moving on to next issue.
Call it "quality control", or "pride in your work", doesnt matter what, but do it.
Its beginning to tarnish the reputation of the company as a game developer house, and breaking elements of the game that are not really technically a serious or difficult issue to enact, just silly mistakes.
Also, relating to the community tester cadre. You dont need to be their "friends". Give them as specific and direct criteria for what you are looking for, and listen to those who raise issues that the mass of testers may not, for one reason or another, actually have any informed basis to comment on, even though they mouth on and on about it without actually having tried it themselves. A community test program is not an "elite buddy group", its an arena to push the product as hard as possible, in as many ways as possible, and deliver the hard news, as directly as possible. Your community managers handle the PR. Devs, you just worry about squeezing them as hard as you can to give you the hard feedback you need. And to community testers, stop considering the program as a "privileged arena to see upcoming stuffs" and rub shoulders with Devs. Instead, break the living hell out of it, no matter if you win or lose.
As a severe anecdote of evidence to this, the last nights Rewind event between BartonPL and VindicareX showcased a completely unexpected axtion from BartonPL (this guy is infamous for bending the system to its absolute limits, time and time again), that would have been absolutely disastrous had it happened during the upcoming ESL Cup big $$$ Final match.
Anyways.
Good luck, and Godspeed, Relic!
Your gonna need it to iron out the kinks on such an imminent and important deadline!