Dunno how their dev team works but if the team is split up by patch updates (with few staff working simultaneously)
Even if 1.18 gets delayed if they have different staff working on different goals for different patches 1.19/1.20 then I still see possibility of 1.19/1.20 coming out on time.

Now due to the problems found in 1.18 if that's going to require changes in 1.19/1.20 team's codes/works then it might delay a bit more on those patches as well... but hopefully it's not something like that. More of just like the Instance Raid adjustments which QA is bug testing. I don't mind if 1.18 came in 1.18a and 1.18b also but pretty sure that's going to piss a lot of people off LOL, it's only 2 weeks more... I can wait... I'll just continue my crafter... damn fatigue came up >< really wish 1.18 was here already so I don't have to worry about this stupid fatigue system...