Accessibility Request: Alternate MMB-Pan Input for Wacom Tablet/Stylus Users

[Jonny Tenebrous]

This is a user accessibility request so, by its nature, it's a niche request and is not going to apply to a majority of users. But please hear me out. I've recently purchased AOE4. I'm a 40+ avid gamer with repetitive strain injury (RSI), so I cannot use a standard mouse anymore. I do use a trackball, but I can overdo that quickly as well. So, I use a Wacom tablet with stylus as my primary input device (LMB on the tip, MMB and RMB on the thumb rocker), and this has worked well for me for almost 15 years. One of the genres of games that can work quite well with tablet/stylus is RTS.

However, there is something very unusual about the camera behaviour in AoE4 - in particular - that causes MMB-drag panning and ALT-drag rotation to go absolutely bonkers while using my Wacom tablet. The screen flies rapidly all over the place and is completely unpredictable and uncontrollable - there is currently nothing that can be done to mitigate this. This is not standard behaviour in other games where I use my tablet! I think it has something to do with the fact that the game locks your cursor to the location where you started moving your mouse while holding MMB or Alt. Some standard mouse users have already reported this behaviour as undesirable to them as well. It plays havoc with tablet users, however.

Note that mouse screen-edge panning is not a very suitable alternative to tablet users, imo. Proper MMB-drag panning is much more fast and precise.

An alternative that *does* work pretty well in some games is to allow Alt-clicking (or similar hotkey) a location on the playfield to centre the camera there.

I would like to request that the developers consider adding an OPTIONAL mouse-mode toggle in the preferences that would disable this "lock mouse cursor location on MMB and ALT hold" behaviour. This would be of help to some mouse users, and would enable appropriate input behaviour on tablet devices, allowing for additional accessibility options for gamers like me who cannot use a normal mouse.