MultiVersus patch 1.03 just made levelling up your characters take twice as long

Have you got your favourite MultiVersus character to level 15 or above yet? You're going to wish you had sooner, if not, because as of MultiVersus patch 1.03, it's going to take you twice as long to master new characters.

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The new patch – which comes along to buff or nerf 15 of the characters in the game – also introduces some changes to how progression works in the title. Per the patch notes themselves, developer Player First Games notes: "The XP required to go from level 3 – 15 on the character mastery track has been doubled."

That may seem extreme, but apparently it's because the developer was seeing people master their characters too quickly. "We were finding that players could get to level 15 of the mastery track too quickly," PFG explains in the patch note update. "This [change] is to help us make it a bit more of a journey."

The alteration will surely be met with disappointment from players. If you want to properly use a character – with all their best perks and unique upgrades – you need to level them to around level 13. Getting to the full mastery (at level 15) grants you a profile badge and profile icon, but for actual gameplay impact, you'll need to get to Level 13 in most cases.

Given the speed at which you could level characters before, this won't make too much of an impact for regualr players – but more casual MultiVersus fans are going to feel the pinch.

Elsewhere in the patch, we've seen Garnet, Gizmo, and Steven Universe benefit from a selection of buffs, whilst Superman, Velma, Jake, Finn and Shaggy have all been hit with nerfs.

You can check out the full set of patch notes below.

General

• Rick Sanchez joins MultiVersus! Rick is a new Mage character joining the roster.
• The XP required to go from level 3 – 15 on the character mastery track has been doubled
• We were finding that players could get to level 15 of the mastery track too quickly. This is to help us make it a bit more of a journey.
• Loading performance improvements for PS4 and Xbox One.
• Initial free character from completing the intro tutorial has been switched to Shaggy from Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman can now be purchased for Gold or Gleamium.
• Attack decay steps have been added to the intro tutorial.
• Fixed an issue in Coop-Versus-AI that was causing only Wonder Woman and Reindog bots to appear.
• Fixed a bug where some players weren’t able to equip profile icons.
• Fixed a bug where the game would occasionally freeze at the end-of-game screen.

Cosmetics

• Reindog Skin: Chef Reindog is now available!
• Reindog Skin: Golden Reindog is now available! ONLY purchasable with gold!
• Steven Universe Skin: Tiger Millionaire is now available!

Twitch Extension

• Minor visual bug fixes
• Added ‘Fighter Voting’ which allows broadcasters to poll their audience on which fighter to play, viewers who have MultiVersus get bonus votes.
• Added the ability for viewers who have MultiVersus to claim free toasts from Twitch channels running the extension.

Gameplay Systems

Anti-Infinite Combo System

• We’ve implemented a new anti-infinite-combo system that will decay all subsequent attacks if the same attack has been used 4 or more times in the same true combo. The goal is to put a global soft-cap on infinite combos and make combos more creative. We hope the change pushes players to explore new and more exciting combo routes.
• We were considering the max number of the same attack being used to be 3, but we wanted to more slowly evaluate the change. We’re going to be evaluating the change and are open to feedback on how we can improve the system!
• The option to choose between 4 direction or 8 direction for the right-stick control (c-stick) has been added to the settings menu.

Projectile Systems

• We are continuing the projectile systems update in this patch. The most notable addition is the inclusion of a new “Light Projectile” classification for projectiles that deal no knockback. The only Light Projectiles in the game for now are Rick’s uncharged blaster

Character Updates

Arya

• Bug Fix: Fixed issues where Arya could deal much more damage than intended.
• Bug Fix: Neutral Special: Fixed issues that were causing hit boxes on stolen attacks to not hit reliably.
• We are still looking at updates to Arya’s up special, but could use more time to make it right. Expect an update in the near future.

Bugs Bunny

• ~ Down Air Attack: Hitbox is slightly smaller to better match the visuals

Finn

• Bug Fix: Side Air Attack: Can no longer ignore air special limits when branching into the attack.
• ~ Air Down Attack: Instant cancel on hit removed.
• ~ Ground Side Attack: Instant jump cancel on hit removed.

Garnet

• + Ground Down Attack: Garnet now retains some of her velocity moving into the attack.
• + Ground Up Attack: Recovery reduced by 3 frames on hit. This change should improve Garnet’s ability to follow up on a successful attack.
• + Air Down Attack: Hitbox active frames start 2 frames earlier. Side Attack 1 combos better into Side Attack 2.
• + Air Neutral Attack: Recovery reduced by 3 frames on hit. This change should improve Garnet’s ability to follow up on a successful attack.

Gizmo

• + Jump Speed: Increased jump speed to 3700 from 3400.
• + Air/Ground Neutral Special: Music note lifetime extended to 10 seconds from 9.
• + Ground Side Special: Car now classified as a heavy projectile
• + Air Slide Special: Recovery reduced by 5 frames
• + Air Down Special: Can now jump cancel out of the attack

Harley

• Bug Fix: Down Special: Fixed an issue where jack-in-the-box would sometimes not hit overlapping enemies

Iron Giant

• Bug Fix: Neutral Special: Bolts will no longer be destroyed when they exit the blast box but Iron Giant is not KOed

Jake

• ~ Air/Ground Down Special: While in the House and on the ground, Jake will no longer bounce grounded opponents.
• ~ Ground Down Attack: Recovery increased by 4 frames on whiff(miss).

LeBron

• Change: Experimental Tag removed.
• Bug Fix: Fixed a bug that would cause the ball to disappear when thrown close to the enemy.
• + Air/Ground Neutral Special: When an ally receives a pass, they emit a small explosion to knock away enemies. No-Look pass basketball speed increased to 3200 from 3000.
• ~ Air/Ground Down Special: No longer blocks heavy projectiles
• ~ Basketball Air Neutral Attack: No longer breaks armor on first hit.

Morty

• Change: Experimental Tag removed.
• Shaggy
• ~ Air Slide Special: Recovery increased by 3 frames on whiff (miss).
• ~ Air Neutral Attack: No longer breaks armor on first hit.

Steven Universe

• Air/Ground Up Special: Smoothed out movement so the attack won’t hitch
• + Ground Side Attack 1-3:
• Smoothed out movement so the attack won’t hitch
• First attack can now branch earlier into the second attack
• Second attack can now branch earlier into the final attack
• Forward movement during attacks increased so that they hit more reliably.
• + Air Side Attack: Increased knockback scaling to 14.5 from 13.5. Steven’s horizontal kill power was very low. We hope this change will help him in this aspect.
• + Air/Ground Side Special: Increased projectile speed slightly.
• + Air Down Attack: Hitbox active frames start 2 frames earlier. This change makes the active hit frames more accurately match the animation.

Superman

• ~ Ground Up Attack:
• Reduced charged knockback scaling to 1.5x from 2.0x.
• Charge cancel reduced by 4 frames
• This should make the attack slightly more of a commitment
• ~ Ground Neutral Attack: Charge cancel reduced by 4 frames.
• ~ Air Up Special:
• Recovery increased by 12 frames on whiff(miss).
• Lowered base knockback of down throw.
• This should help make the wall camping strategies less effective.

Tom And Jerry

• Ground Side Attack 1:
• Hitbox active frame window increased by 2 frames
• Recovery increased by 4 frames on whiff(miss)
• ~ Ground Side Attack 2: Recovery increased by 4 frames on whiff(miss)
• + Air Side Attack:
• Recovery reduced by 3 frames
• Recovery land cancel reduced by 7 frames
• + Air Down Attack:
• Recovery reduced by 3 frames
• Recovery land cancel window moved forward by 3 frames.
• Pushed knockback angle to be more horizontal
• + Air/Ground Neutral Special: Jerry returns back to Tom if he is killed when attached to an ally.

Velma

• Bug Fix: Ground Up Special: Fixed a bug where Velma’s vial wouldn’t apply stacks of ice reliably
• Air/Ground Neutral Attack: Bug Fix: Toodles speech bubble no longer consumes 1 additional ammo. Ally Enhanced Speech bubbles no longer apply 1 stack of weaken.
• Air Down Attack: Pushed Knockback angle to be more horizontal
• ~ Air/Ground Up Air: Recovery increased by 3 frames.
• ~ Air/Ground Neutral Special:
• Ally enhanced beam no longer applies 1 stack of weaken
• Ally enhanced beam base knockback reduced from 1750 to 1600.