Pre season was a bit extreme. Some of those grinds, particularly the last few levels before jumping world tiers were awful. Level 80-100 was also pretty awful getting barely one paragon point per NM dungeon.
Then again groups were running through some dungeons like champs demise and getting 4x experience in 1/4 of the time. That caused the nerf to group exp but the buff to individual exp once we hit S1. In S1 you didn’t get your first smouldering ashes until something like level 44 so you couldn’t buff the early game exp. They moved that up now into the 20’s where it belongs.
And let’s also consider the game has been out a while now and efficient farming strategies have also emerged coupled with special events and elixirs mob density, permanent zones and helltides with even more density. All the things together make it way easier to level compared to launch.
Now if they gave us a seasonal quest that took past level 20 to complete with more content I would be ok with slowing things a bit, but this season is mailed in and only extended by the same grind that S2 introduced. I was hoping for more.