MultiVersus 1.03 patch has arrived and it brings with it everybody's favourite alcoholic nihilist, Rick Sanchez from Adult Swim's Rick and Morty. Good news!

However, in a slightly more controversial turn of events, this new update also nerfs XP progression for characters between the levels of 3 and 15, meaning that you now need double the XP - and therefore double the time - in order to raise your favourite fighter up to the maximum level.

This may seem like a bit of a strange step take but, according to the developers it's been a necessary one as "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."

Rick Multiversus

This change shouldn't affect more seasoned players too much, levelling up in the game was super fast so most should have a stable of maxed-out favourite fighters to choose from at this stage, but it's certainly going to be a bit of a jarring decision for more casual fans, even if the reasoning behind it is understandable. Indeed, this patch really does put a lot of the more fun abilities for every character behind a sizeably bigger time barrier, so it's gonna be interesting to see just how the game's enthusiastic community takes to it.

Elsewhere in patch 1.03, the free character rewarded after completing the game's intro tutorial has been changed from Wonder Woman to Scooby Doo's Shaggy, and loading times have seen improvement on last-gen consoles.

You can take a look at the full patch notes below:

Multiversus Patch 1.03

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.

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.

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 Side 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 Side 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.

How do you feel about the new XP changes in MultiVersus, is it gonna affect your enjoyment of the game? Let us know in the comments.