I'm curious exactly how much content I'm missing by refusing to ever fight anyone? I don't want to be a mean dragon... but I've been level 1 the entire time, I assume because I've never tried to fight back.
I'd say you're missing out on a lot. Think of it this way: Initiating combat doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be a mean dragon. It more or less establishes who gets to call the shots afterwards.
Take one of the Eastern Dragons, for example. They view combat as an art form, and eagerly invite you to join them, because they think it's fun. Combat for dragons is often seen as less as a sign of aggression (territorial disputes notwithstanding) and more of a contest.
not really. There are several instance where being a bottom is not a bad thing. Again *spoiler alert*
1. Constantly losing fights to the chromatic dragons will let you to meet your posibly future husband (you're the bottom of course unless you want to the be top by defeating him, hardest fight in the game btw)
2. Defeating the eastern dragons made you a power bottom
3. You can bottom for the dragons that messes with a certain caravan.
So overall being the bottom is not a bad thing. But if you want to find the secret npc by beating frost, you can fight eastern dragon if you want to bottom, and choose get f*cked with territorial dragons (that's what i do)
I've tried 1, that is just a game over screen...
2 and 3 have *never* come up. I know there's a random chance factor, but it must be incredibly uncommon.
Why would "get fucked" improve your level but not "suck him off"...?
Based on what you've told me, I'm starting to think I'm not *missing* anything at all, and it's it's just that the start of the game is very, very, very, very, very slow and I just haven't gotten there yet.
and that's what i'm trying to say. To level up, yes you'll need quite the amount. To be the top? Not necceccarily since there are a lot of bottomings you can do and may want to do, or even may need to be done (the ones i mentioned are the examples). In fact, i feel like this game has more bottoming chance than topping, you just need to discover them