crossing help

[charlieinwhite]

picked 18 up on sale for my ps4 with 15 being my last and it appears so much has changed, for the worse unless im just missing something simple out so i thought id ask here first.
first off, crossing, is it broken?
in 15 holding l1 and hitting cross led to an early cross which was handy but now its seemingly removed, am i right?
i use semi and the power bar comes up but it feels like an assisted/manual hybrid, in 15 you could influence the cross with power and l3 but now aiming for the guy on the edge of the box leads to the cross going to the halfway line, tapping cross with no direction applied invariably goes to the opposite winger at the back post while fully powering cross does the same, so is it just random now?
i have tried reinstalling the game, deleting options and using default settings with the same results, im not seeing people going mad so i'm taking it im doing something wrong any help would be appreciated.

ps: i've checked out youtube videos of 'crossing tutorials' but crossing inside the area which is all they seem to do isn't my thing, my wingers hug the touchline throwing balls in for the target man, or not as i've pointed out.

thanks in advance.