so is it normal for the game to only give me slime ball drops? i can't for the life of me figure out how to feel the slime queen nor get the goblin alchemist to test their potions on me
You must kill slimes and collect their slime balls in order to feed them to the Slime Queen and get the statue upgrade.
If you want to get ingredients for potions, you have to "sacrifice" immobilized mobs by pressing E, standing next to them. However, Alchemist's potions are just scenes and they won't give you anything.