So I usually have upwards of 10 unclaimed rewards (probably 11 or 12 max which I claim only when necessary) and at least one of them in the Halloween update was problematic enough to cause the game to offline/desync and timeout regularly - this had been ongoing for a week+ (game /chat offlining, had a desync loop at one point, timeout when resetting gauntlet, 1/2 mins or timeout when doing alliance patrols, upwards of 1 or 2 mins to join/host coop games or pvp matchmaking).
Anyway I made sure to finally get around to cleaning it all out and I’ve had no problems since. I was keeping an eye on forum topics and came across at least 1 or 2 posts regarding connectivity issues.
So if anyone is experiencing connectivity issues, make sure to clean up and claim your event rewards as one of the recent ones is the cause of game instability.
Edit: the issue first became apparent during the most recent bounty ; after each attempt at bounty I’d be forced to wait for the game to offline, desync and restart in order to do another bounty attempt