Switching Players for Air Balls

[_ChicoBass]

Don't know about you guys, but my Fifa 13 does this bull move where it won't let me switch the defensive player I'm controlling during air balls at times. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. I'll be attacking, a defender clears it, and while the opposing team's player is standing in the middle of the field waiting for the ball to come down while I'm still controlling a striker on the other side of the field and there are 3 of my players just standing around the opposing player giving him all of the space he needs to comfortably control the ball. The game won't let me switch until the opposing player controls the ball. That isn't so bad since I can win the ball back, but where it really pisses me off is when the opposing team crosses the ball, and the game won't let me switch to another defender so the opposing striker jumps up with no one bothering him and heads the ball into the net. I tried switching the settings to auto-switching, but it just felt too easy almost like cheating. What do you guys think?

[jmaj315]

my auto switch is set to air balls.
soooo....
that works for me

[_ChicoBass]

Quote: Originally Posted by jmaj315

my auto switch is set to air balls. soooo.... that works for me

Lol yeah that's what I tried, but I guess since I'm used to playing with it off, everytime the ball is in the air I press the button to switch players and it messes me up since the game already switched me automatically lol

[simgamer0005]

Yeah the switching players needs to be improved, I've always throught the crossing, passing, and headers were too automatic in fifa games. The player you switch to shouldn't just automatically warp to the ball for a one-timer a la NHL 94. It's 2013. You should have to control exactly the position and actually time the animation of the header. Instead, crosses and header attempts just automatically are perfectly executed every time without you having to move the player to the correct position and time the kick, trap or header.

[Yeats]

So many of FIFA's issues are fixed by playing with player lock on and this is one of them. It's the only way I play the game anymore.

[mpt117]

switch player is one of the things that frustrates me the most in fifa 13, i think it's worse than in fifa 11 of fifa 12. i play on ps3, btw.

when i'm on defense and when i'm facing a counter-attack, whenever i hit L1 to switch player, it never switches to the player closest to the ball or the player i want. sometimes it switches to the player farthest from the ball! by the time i cycle through and get to the player i want to defend with, i am out of position and trying to play catch up, but it usually ends up in a goal scored on me. this happens vs. cpu and when i play against friends.

i changed auto-switch to air balls to try it out, but it still happens. my friend suggested to switch player by using R3, as that what he does and it's quicker for him. looks like i'm going to try and break the habit of pressing L1. just weird that switch player was better in the previous two versions of this game and was wonky in the latest.

[Qb]

I used "Air balls" switching for awhile, but I'm starting to use manual switching more. The only time it really hurts me is on crosses into the box, primarily corner kicks, because it's too difficult to manually switch to the correct defender. And since my teammates do no aerial defending with user input, I'm now giving up a lot of uncontested headers.

But I'm sticking with it for now, because I like to control someone away from the ball to take away some of the easy FIFA passing lanes that are always available if left to the AI. On top of that, it seems my AI teammates are more active when I stay in control of one player for longer periods of time. I assume it's because of the natural disruption caused by the user cycling through players quickly, which takes them out of the normal AI behaviors (if that makes any sense).

I feel like this is where FIFA (and NHL) come up short... they haven't found a way to get the AI to work well with unpredictable user input. Left on its own, the CPU is competent enough; eg, remember the big flap about people controlling on the GK online and letting the CPU do all the work?