S7 ending early?

Theoretically, season 8 should be starting either on Aug 15th or (more logically) on Sep 5th 2024. That is if Blizzard actually ever applied any logic to what they do.

And here is why:
- Blizz has very clearly stated that their goal is to have seasons in D2, D3 and D4 be in an even lock-step with one another so as to minimize interference and early season overlap.
- Seasons tend to always begin on the same day of the week. The one thing blizz has typically been rather reliable with actually was the weekday of patches/seasons/... across their games.

Now, funny enough, that last point - the one they were always reliable on - hasn't worked quite as well yet for D4 as that went Thu, Tue, Tue, Tue and now apparently Wed. Be that as it may however, let's assume Wed becomes the new official D4 patch day (which kinda works out as it shuffles D2/3/4 into 1-day steps).

If you want to keep any reliability in patch days, season duration needs to be a multiple of 7 days. Based on previous season durations, that number seems to be closing in on 84 days. D3 has been close to that for a couple seasons now (86), D4 is now at 85 (84 + 1 day patch day shift), D2 has been dropping hard with S6 and is still adjusting (because it is now subject to whatever they do with D4 which wasn't the case in older seasons). Generally, that 84 likely won't be set in Stone across the board but it would make sense as shorter than that or around that already had people start bitching about how short it was and longer than that reduces blizz0rd's income from selling D4 season passes to folks still for some reason playing that clusterf. So my educated guess will remain around that mark.

Now, working with that assumption, D4 is easy enough as it should simply drop from 85 to 84 beyond this season as patch day shouldn't shift every time.
D3 would then drop from 86 to 79 days active season duration because D3 is actually split into season end and season start being 5 days apart (with 79 + 5 again being 84). And D2..well, D2 gets two options:
1) The current season gets the same duration applied -> Season end on Aug 15th
2) (way more logical) The current season is extended because D2 season start is actually too early right now to be in even lockstep. This would move the current season beyond the 84 day mark to bring it into lockstep and then apply the 84 days to future seasons. -> Season end on Sep 5th

Theoretically, the same train of thought applies to D3 but turns out that'd yield the same date either way.

Assuming the 2nd scenario, you would then have D4 lead the switch on Aug 7th, D2 follow on Sep 5th and D3 follow that on Oct 4th. D4 would then again follow that on Oct 30th and so on. I.e. you get 84 days 'total' in every game and they're all as evenly spread out as you can get them while accounting for the different weekdays for patches and season start/end.

Or to visualize that a tad: Red = educated guess, based on D4 taking the lead
Green = same educated guess applied to prior start timing
Orange = same educated guess but also assuming a shift to even lockstep

All of the above is assuming Google didn't lie to me about the past season dates and Blizz at least applies a minimum of logic to their approach for a change (and sticks to what they said about lock-stepping and reliable durations..). So...take it with the usual grain of salt I guess.

ghostpos wrote: 1 year ago

Why do you think the seasons aren't automated in perpetuity? Why do Blizz have this manual process still? I'm sure there's valid reasons I just don't personally get it.

Simply put, because they're incompetent.