This is the main issue in my opinion, too. Anyone who expected faster updates after losing a team member was an idiot, that's one of the most valid reasons you could have for slow progress.and the fact that there was no communication with your community(one post at the start of march one at the end) made a lot of people mad and they are a little justified. The game is amazing dont get me wrong but it needs a scedule and a good one at that! Like if the next update comes mid to the end of june and the people are informed (and you actually deliver) all the haters and people bad mouthing the game and your team whouldnt have their complains justified.
But regardless of what the reasons are, even if the reason for some delay was something kind of mundane, like "sorry guys, we've honestly got no clue what we're doing right now and need to take a bit to sort things out," at least that lets people remain informed. Otherwise people are going to assume the worst, given how common patreon scams are, and creators outright giving up and vanishing after overpromising and underdelivering (Malise and the Machine, Akabur, countless others).
This has to be the #1 reason behind almost every case of people getting angry at any patreon page, without a doubt, and I really think people would be more optimistic if you simply improved communication. You can't please everyone and you shouldn't try, but you can let them know what's going on and keep the trust. And most importantly, good communication would build you a lot of respect on a site known for financially incentivising abuse of trust.
I actually liked the writing in this recent update, particularly around Ornshakar, for what it's worth, and this is one of the very few games on patreon I'd even consider spending money on.