Madden NFL 13

Placing this as a solution so folks see it, might help the debate on the effect of difficulty on legacy scores:

CREDIT TO RCJ1138 (EA Forums)

I was able to get a reply from Dan at EA regarding Legacy Score for CCM offline so I am posting it here just in case anyone needs the info.

Your legacy score goes up as you reach various "milestone" goals. This includes achieving game, season, and career stat thresholds, breaking NFL records, and winning playoff games. The score is modified based on your difficulty and quarter length settings.

The base score for breaking the single-game passing yards record is 25 points. However, with 15 minute quarters it is very easy to break this record so you only received 2 points (scaled down to 10% of base value).

To achieve the highest legacy scores, use the following settings:

- All-Pro or All-Madden difficulty.
- Quarter length of 5-8 minutes.

Hope this helps,

Dan

Here is the way I got this achievement. I don't "guarantee" this will work for you, depends on your playing style and general aptitude towards the game.

First, set up your created player:
- Pocket Passer
- High Draft Pick
- Kansas City Chiefs (this ensures you start immediately)

This also starts you off at an 84 or 85 rating.

Go default settings, DO NOT adjust anything (sliders, difficulty levels, nothing)

Start your season. I generally played 4 games a season. The other games, I would sim, and if I didn't like the results (a win and milestones achieved) I would just exit the career, go back and try again. One of the ways I would determine which games to play is look at the opponents DEF ranking - if it was horrible (say 25 or higher) that would be one I would be most likely to play.

Now, on my road to getting this achievement, I only used ONE PLAY - I just had many options out of that play.

After you click on the game to play it, you will see an option of "advanced" here you can choose your offensive and defensive formation. For Offense, I would always choose the ATL formation.

Here is the ONE PLAY that I ran:

Gun Offense
Spread Y Flex Formation
Y PA Deep Outs

This play is a 4 WR shotgun formation. The two outside receivers go about 15-18 yards and break towards sideline. The left slot receiver (my primary target always) takes a long post pattern. The right slot TE runs a short route, I generally just looked at him as a last resort.

Now, this is where it gets to be like a real-life QB. You have to go through your progressions. When you get to the line of scrimmage, take a look at your safeties. If they're both deep, chances are they will take away the deep pass to the left slot receiver. So, I would look to hit the receiver between the LBs and the safeties. When you snap the ball, if the safety on the left either goes towards the left WR OR starts creeping up, give your slot receiver a chance to make his cut and then hit him, and he's off to the races. Now, if none of that happens, look to the outside receiver on the opposite hashmark side. You should then be able to hit him as he is making his cut to the sideline. If by chance he is covered, then if you have time, look towards your TE cutting across the middle. If nothing open take the sack. Now, you need to run no huddle as much as possible (hitting Y repeatedly after getting tackled in field) . I found this helps on the next play (maybe def has trouble getting set). Now, anytime I was within 5 yard line, I would still run this play, but audible (hit "X") to the "Quick Pass." Then after the snap, go to the left WR ("X") cutting into the end zone. If by chance I got to 4th down (anywhere on the field, no matter the distance needed for 1st down) I would go for it. The D seemed lax on 4th down plays, I would say I succeeded 98% of the time. So, again, I ran this ONE PLAY only, and was very comfortable reading the Defense pre play and during the play. My games ended up with 750-900 yds passing with 9-11 TDs (high of 1,100 yds and 14 TD passes).

Obviously your goal is to win Superbowl, so if the week for you is successful, save after it, if not (meaning Sim didn't go well for that week), exit and restart and try again. Don't worry about playing the postseason games. Just sim (exit and restart if needed). For first 6 seasons, I averaged about 2000 legacy points a season.

Now, in terms of XP, there's no exact science to it. I saved up for 50,000 to get the Development Trait upgrade (which increases the XP you get for each milestone/record/etc.). Once I got that, I saved up to 50,000 again to get the 2nd level of it. After that, I generally worked on the short pass/medium pass/long pass accuracy.

For first 6 seasons, I won the Superbowl, MVP, Top Passer, Pro Bowl milestones (and others).

For 7-10 seasons, I went up to All-Madden. Also, I did not worry about winning Superbowl, however, I did make sure I still made playoffs at least. It really is not that different other than the defensive players ARE faster, they will sack the heck outta you, and intercept you in a heartbeat. However, at this point my ability to run that play mentioned above was highly proficient, as well as reading the D, so it wasn't that much of an adjustment. Still averaged about the same stats per game.

I just finished my 13th season (trying to get to 99 rating, currently at a 98). Here are my career stats at that point:

13 seasons
79,865 passing yards
854 TD passes
239 Ints
19,000 legacy points

Again, I'm not saying this is going to work for you. You may have a different play and formation that you feel comfortable with. This play I was extremely comfortable with.

My time estimate is about 20 hours for me to get this. Yeah, a sh*tpot full of time.

If you have any questions, let me know.

Just wanted to add my own two cents here. The strategy I used was actually based off of BladeMDP's strategy, and I highly recommend you take a look at it in order to get a general idea of what is required for this achievement. This includes being a pocket passer, playing for the Chiefs, being a high draft pick, and using the Atlanta Falcons offensive playbook (defensive doesnt matter). Also, I did NOT change a single setting until my seventh season, when I switched to All-Madden difficulty. However, there was a difference in what plays we used.

For whatever reason, I SUCK at running play action. It seems like the defense never bites, and even if they do, I usually get sacked, even if I do the new abort method. So instead, I went looking through the Atlanta Falcons playbook (again, credit to Blade for the idea), and I settled on running a play called Verticals.

There are several variations of this play in the game, and I am honestly not sure if there is another verticals in their playbook, but the ONE play I ran the entire time I was going for this achievement was out of the shotgun, the empty backfield version of Verticals. In this play, the number One and Two receiver line up in their normal spots, the starting halfback lines up next to the number two receiver, and then the TE and number 3 receiver line up on the right, next to the number one receiver. You can find this play by going to Play Type, scrolling to Shotgun, then scrolling up a few screens while in game.

My strategy was simple: spam the TE (A button) and the third receiver (RB button). The TE runs up the field for about 10 yards before angling a bit left toward the center of the field, and was open I would say 75 percent of the time, as usually the linebackers's are too slow/stupid to react. I found out that even if the TE looks covered, bulleting him the ball while holding left on the stick to throw it to his left would make him warp half the time, and resulted in easy, easy yardage. I learned to just throw him the ball even if he looked covered, because the linebackers's seemed to never turn their heads around to even attempt to make a play; in fact, my only incompletions from doing this was because the ball would hit the Linebacker in the back of the head...pretty funny stuff. This pass usually averaged between 15-25 yards easy.

Alright, on to spam number 2. On the rare chance that the TE wasn't open or I just got bored throwing to him, the third reciever, RB, was my go to guy. He runs basically a streak up field, but because the number one receiver is to his right, the safety usually slides toward the #1 Receiver, leaving a nice gap between the strong and free safeties. Again, by bulleting the pass to RB and holding left on the stick so my quarterback would angle the ball to his left, I was able to pick up 30 to 35 yards a pop, and that was if someone actually was able to tackle him. Using this strategy, I was able to get even Mohammed Massaquio, a low 70's overall wide reciever with mid 80's speed around 300-400 yards a game, with a high of 879! O.O

Of course, just like Blade mentioned, you have to go through your progressions, though with this strategy you rarely have to look anywhere other then A and RB. On occasion, B and X (Dwayne Bowe and Jonathan Baldwin, at this time of writing), will be wide open, themselves running streaks as well, due to their high release rating, but again, I threw to them only occasionally, as RB and A were my targets 95% of the time. For red zone situations (10 yards or less from the endzone), I would pick the same play but would audible to a quick pass, which would change Y (the halfback) and X (the number 2 receiver) into running slant routes toward the center of the field. Y was my short touchdown go-to guy, and X was a good backup.

So yeah, hopefully this was a good alternative to anyone who either sucks at running play action or just wanted a different strategy. Again, I kept everything else the same as Blade, so I give the man a huge amount of props, as his strategy was the blueprint I used myself. Using my strategy, I user played 5 games a season for 7 seasons, making sure to win league MVP, win the super bowl, etc., and then I completely simmed the rest, until finally in my 13th or so year I broke Brett Farves passing yards career record, which put me over the top.

Make no mistake, this WILL take a significant amount of time to do, as there is no easy way around it...you have to put in the work to get the inflated stats so you break the career milestones, which are where big chunks of legacy are located. Do what I and or Blade did, and you should be able to get there with little difficulty. If you have any questions, tips, whatever, send me a message on here or Xbox Live, and I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks =)

P.S. Make sure to hold the Y button after every play is over so your offense runs a hurry up back to the line....doing so prevents precious time being automatically drained from the game clock due to the accelerated clock. Finally, use your timeouts accordingly to try and squeeze in one last touchdown before the 2nd and 4th quarters end.

this really isnt a solution, but more of a strategy. i was playing around trying to find out what gives you the most bang for the buck. here is what i did and what i got.
pocket qb, high draft cowboys. only moved no fire coach. started with a 84 rating and was starter.

i did 4 games using different settings.
game 1. all madden with these sliders adjusted only
pass block 100 run block 75
wr catching 75
pass def reaction time, int, pass rush 10
29-41 453 yds 5 tds 0 int gained 22 legacy points

game 2 all pro. reset all sliders reset except left 3 def above the same
34-49 511 yds 6 td 2 int 28 legacy points

game 3 pro all sliders reset except left 3 def above the same
33-43 514 yds 6 td 0int 28 legacy points

game 4 pro all sliders at presets
39-60 616 yds 5 td 7 int 52 legacy points

as you see everything was pretty much equal. game 1 i didnt get milestone of 500 yds so thats why its lower. game 4 i got record yards in a game and season goal of 20+ tds. so im pretty sure why that one is alot higher. i'll try one more game on the pro level and see if i get 28 points again. if thats the case then it really doesnt matter what difficulty you play on and where the sliders are. if you noticed something different please let me know

edit. just played game 5 pro preset sliders
30-59 544 yds 6 td 2 int 27 legacy points
as you see difficulty and sliders really do not make a difference. as long as you get 500+ yds and 5+ tds per game you are maxed out

You CAN adjust the sliders. This one is easy; it just takes time. Follow what I did:

Creation:

1. Start my career
2. Play offline
3. Use default roster
4. Begin a career with player
5. Choose QB Pocket Passer
6. Choose Packers (not a fan, just because they are a good team in this game)

Settings:

7. Turn on Instant Starter. Skill level to All-Madden. Quarter length to 5 Minutes. Game Speed to Very Fast. Turn off Injuries. Turn off Coach Firing. Trade Type to Disable all. Start Career.

9. Go to "More.../My League/League Sliders: Turn all Player Skill sliders to 100. Turn all CPU sliders to 0. Turn Injuries and Fatigue sliders to 0. Turn penalty sliders to 0: Holding, Offensive Pass Interference, etc

The long repetitive journey begins:

8. Sim every Pre Season as this does not count towards your career statistics.

9. Milestones is what you need to achieve in order for your legacy to increase. Focus on getting as many Pass Yds and Pass TDs as you can in each game. Once you break the career record for Pass TDs, you can then switch to QB sneak if you are near the goal line to try getting some Rushing TD records. There is a milestone for getting 10 rushing TDs per season. This is something I did; I even broke the season record for rushing TDs, but I doubt it is necessary for your progression towards the achievement. However, if you decide to do this, just make sure you are averaging 5 Pass TDs per game, as that is the max milestone for pass TDs, and 500 pass YDs is the max milestone for Pass YDs.

10. One play is pretty much all you need. In match game go to Formation/Gun/Empty back/Verticals. With the sliders adjusted almost always someone is going to be open. Once you get a completion, hurry up the offense, so you can get as many plays in as you can before time expires.

11. Obviously you will need to get all 5 MVPs and all 5 Superbowl wins. DO NOT keep throwing to the same receiver and not let your other receivers catch the ball, as that receiver might end up winning MVP instead of you. I accidentally kept throwing to Greg Jennings one season, and he won MVP instead of me.

12. Play every regular season game.
13. Sim all play off games, but make sure to save before each game just in case you lose. If you do lose in the sim, quit Connected Careers, return and try again.

14. Once you win all 5 Superbowls, you will not need to bother with the playoffs, so just sim on through to next season, regardless of whether you win or lose. You will not earn any more legacy from milestones after the 5th Superbowl.

Player Upgrades:

15. Upgrade deep pass accuracy first. Then upgrade medium and finally short pass accuracy. Afterwards upgrade Throwing Power, as it allows you to throw the ball longer distances. I saved up my XP and upgraded my player after each season.

Records:

16. Career records and progress towards the career records ESPECIALLY the Pass YDS career record will earn you the most legacy points. You will earn a milestone about every 10K YDs.
17. Pass TDS career record will come first, followed by the YDS record.

Duration:

It took me about 7-8 seasons to get it. I actually simmed the entirety of my final regular season, as I was on 65K Pass YDs and I was eager to get it finished that day. In real time it took me about 13 days, playing an average of 80 minutes per day.

Final stats when achievement popped:

Pass YDs: 70,096 (under career record)
Pass TDs: 870
Pass INT: 11 (all from sim only)
Completion Pct.: 76
Rushing YDs: 964
Rushing TDs: 98
Fumbles: 0

Just be patient. You will get it. God bless.