You will notice, as some have pointed out, that the issue count after the most recent freeze is higher than before the freeze. The is par the course, as technical debt before the freeze was catching up, manifesting itself as issues at a faster rate than the rate of fixes. Of course not all issues are technical bugs nor should the issue count be used as a concrete metric.
As such, the following should continue to be disallowed in feature freezes, as they increase technical debt:
- Features
Tweaks
Map Edits (that are not fixes)
- Refactors
Removals
Removals are the opposite of feature additions. I realize that removals are generally controversial, but they reduce lines of code and complexity and are therefore a good thing technically. Assuming the existence of valid removal PRs that would be merged outside of a feature freeze, they should also be allowed during a freeze as well.
Balance PRs are tricky.
Over the course of a feature freeze gameplay changes induced by fixes and/or shifts in player behavior can cause signficant balance issues that need to be addressed. As such, I don't like the idea of balance changes being completely denied especially for a signficiant period of time. However, a blanket allowance of balance changes can be abused. I'd recommend only allowing balance PRs only with prior headcoder/design-lead/headmin/whatever approval.
In Summary:
Completely allow refactors and removals during feature freezes, as they help fulfill the ultimate purpose of feature freezes. Allow balance changes only with prior approval for freeze sustainability.