I've heard people throwing around the idea that Tekken 8 S3 has inflated the ranks a bit, and that's at least consistent with the observations that almost nobody hit higher than GoD4 in the previous season, but some folks are further already now, and I'm seeing a bunch of players at GoD2 already.

(I haven't been playing all that much ranked, but I'm at TGS and haven't hit much resistance yet, so maybe the folks who are a threat to me are already a bit further along. GoD0 soon? Maybe I'll keep going this season and try to get further into the GoD ranks? ...)