Has the latest patch done something to the dragon population? I created a new character a few days ago, an Altmer mage. He's up to level 11 or something. I've played as this character for at least 10 hours, or so. The only dragon I have fought was the one outside Whiterun at the watchtower, and I took up that quest fairly early, giving ample time for dragons to start roaming the world. But there are none to be seen. Once, ONCE, a few hours ago I fast-traveled to Morthal and saw a dragon flying above me after I had just left the town. I followed it back to Morthal shooting lightning at it, and even the guards were shooting arrows at it.

The dragon circled above the town about 2 or 3 times and then just flew off.

What the hell happened? On my first playthrough there were dragons everywhere! But since the latest patch they seem to have just gone away, or fly off like they have better things to do.

I still get a fair amount of Dragons on my main character, but they are to far between honestly, as much as I hated getting attacked by Dragons every ten steps or so I do miss the occasional battle.

Well they're random encounters and dragons are not scripted like everything else. Also might have something to do with your low level, the higher you get might increase the chances of dragons spawning more frequently. You could also get lucky from asking a Jarl for work and being sent off to fight one and there are a few more to fight in the MC quest line.

Edit: Also you might want to try Dawnstar. That place is attacked 50% of the time for me and everyone who is not marked as "essential" there is dead.

Most of my dragons are just flying now. Good thing I say, not all of them are always out for blood. They are intelligent creatures.

I actually started this same thread early today as I have noticed the same behaviors. I have noticed this even when going to dragon lairs that they will fly off out of range.... I had to chase on from Danstar to Morthal once just to collect the soul. On my last character at level 45 dragons would always stand and fight, now on this character I am level 28 and dragons run for the hills upon seeing me. I don't know if the new patch to make them stop flying backwards screwed up the AI or what, but it is annoying to have to chase them down... Dragon Souls are becomming rare for me and with my 1st character I always had plenty to use for unlocking my shouts.

They do seem to have slowed down a bit, perhaps it was one thing Bethesda listened to the community about.

People were QQ'ing like mad that having dragons every 30 steps was somehow destroying the magic behind them, which to an extent I agree with.

I will say that I still get the same dragons whenever I fast travel to certain areas. College of Winterhold, Dawnstar, Ivarstead, etc.

I'm not sure if anything did change, but it may have been another stop gap in the framerate issues people were having or just a misreading in our own perceptions.