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More like "people with real responsibilities don't play in gigantic dungeons", amirite fellas? ;^)

Don't worry, I'm just poking fun and being facetious too but... yeah. I'm pretty young by this forum's standards (only 22) but I still have some experience with what I'm describing. I first discovered classic Daggerfall back when I was in high school and starting to get into retro gaming. And back then, when I could spend the entire afternoon playing videogames if I wanted to? I absolutely ADORED Daggerfalls's massive dungeons, I couldn't get enough of them.
I eventually stopped playing Daggerfall and moved on to other games, but then a few years later I discovered DFU, downloaded it, and tried to get back into the game. Except that now I was in college, and also had a job. And I discovered I just couldn't stand the dungeons anymore. The same dungeons I used to love back when I had all afternoon to play videogames were now extremely annoying because I now could only play for a couple hours a day at most, which meant that a single dungeon quest could easily stretch on for several play sessions and that just wasn't fun. So I ended up avoiding most dungeon quests for a long time, until I discovered smaller dungeons. Only being able to play for a couple hours every day really made me appreciate a setting that allowed me to go into a dungeon and be in-and-out in an hour.
You may think the trend of people using smaller dungeons is "disturbing", but I'm extremely glad that a setting that allows busy adults with actual shit to do to still enjoy the game exists

the biggest advantage of smaller dungeons is they compress time spent in dungeons so I can do more in my limited play sessions.

I think that's a consideration for many, and was the motivation behind the locator devices in my Archaeologists guild mod which provide a different solution to the problem.

How does "smaller dungeons" option work exactly, anyway? Does it only create one explorable dungeon block, and leaves the rest in the void?

billyloist wrote: ↑Wed Apr 06, 2022 3:18 pm How does "smaller dungeons" option work exactly, anyway? Does it only create one explorable dungeon block, and leaves the rest in the void?

Dungeons made up of interior blocks and border blocks which seal the perimeter of dungeon. The smallest valid dungeon size is 1x interior block sealed with 4x border blocks to the north, south, east, and west of interior block. The starting dungeon Privateer's Hold is one such dungeon.

Smaller Dungeons works by taking all the pieces that would normally make up the dungeon and pseudo-randomly (using dungeon ID as a seed so it's the same every time) selects 1x interior block and 4x border blocks to layout a new minimal dungeon configuration. All other blocks are discarded during layout and not added to scene.

I see, that's interesting. But how can you explain various dungeon pieces floating in the void that you can't access? Especially in cemeteries, which are much shorter and only feature a straight way down with a few branching rooms most of the time. They do sometimes have a secret door that can lead to other places, but not always.

Those are the border blocks. Each side of a border block presents either a dead end or loop back into adjacent interior block. This structure allows a border block to seal dungeon from any direction (even multiple directions at once) without regard to orientation. This setup means the unused edges of border blocks are sitting in space where the player can't access.

This has nothing to do with Smaller Dungeons however - it's just how Daggerfall's dungeons are constructed. If you're interested in learning more, this UESP page has some more info about dungeon block types and Daggerfall Modelling is a good way to explore these layouts visually.

Something to note about the small graveyards and crypts is they use a special type of interior block (names start with M) that's usually self-contained and doesn't really need border blocks to seal. The MAPS.BSA file still defines border blocks for these layouts though, and it's best not to exclude them. In these crypts, the dungeon exit quad often covers a doorway into a border block behind the exit.

Thanks for the info! I'm trying it out, it all seems very fascinating, and after seeing it with my own eyes it makes a lot more sense now. I wonder if there will be any plans for map making capabilities, I think custom dungeon layout creation could have a lot of potential (sort of how Doom thrives through its map making community).

Map making is currently possible, the tools are just in their infancy and there is a problem with object roatation that needs to be fixed to be able to consistently do much more than copy what the original dungeons did.
So yes, you can make new dungeons, but you need to be stubborn

Also, there is the obvious problem that the game has a gazillion dungeons. So just spending a week making one new dungeon runs the risk of having litterally zero players ever actually entering it

True. But it can be a part of the custom quest with a special dungeon, or perhaps editing one of the quest dungeons. A review I watched recently lamented the fact that 99% of dungeons aren't as interesting and engaging compared to the final story dungeon (Mantellan Crux).