MultiVersus releases first Open Beta patch notes

Less than 24 hours before the early access portion of the MultiVersus open beta begins, Player First Games has shared details about the big new patch that will go live alongside it, which will introduce Iron Giant, a new map, and more. 

This will technically be the Open Beta V0 patch, which will mark the beginning of the soft launch and a consistent schedule for MultiVersus. And, the devs have done a lot, adding new abilities, reworking moves, changing titles, and even enabling local multiplayer for up to four players. 

Most of the biggest changes are quality of life: things like Wall Fatigue, to keep players from hugging the wall off stage for extended periods of time, and a glossary of game-specific terms to help players learn them on the MultiVersus main menu.

There are also dozens of balance adjustments for certain characters like Tom and Jerry, Taz, and Jake.

This will be the first time a new character is added to the game. Iron Giant will become playable at the start of the beta, along with the Ancient Sky Arena Steven Universe map.

So if you are jumping into the Open Beta, or just plan on picking up MultiVersus at any point soon, here are the V0 patch notes.

MultiVersus open beta V0 patch notes

New content

• Iron Giant is now playable
  • “Iron Giant has arrived! He is our very first Colossal-sized character!”
• Steven Universe: Ancient Sky Arena Map is now available to play
• One to four-player Local Play is now available

Global

• Wall Fatigue
  • After spending 5 seconds wall sliding without touching the ground or starting to wall slide 6 times without touching the ground, you start to wall slide progressively faster.
  • After spending 10 seconds wall sliding without touching the ground or starting to wall slide 11 times without touching the ground, you suffer Wall Fatigue.
  • Wall Fatigue effects:
    • Wall sliding no longer resets your Air Specials and Air Evades.
    • You no longer get a Double Jump after Wall Jumping.
    • For every 0.5 seconds of wall sliding or every time you touch a wall, you lose Dodge Meter.
• Fire debuff damage now decays over time.
• Abilities that use ammo are now divided into two cooldowns: one cooldown to use the ability and one cooldown to refund ammo. Ability cooldown modifiers affect both cooldowns equally.
• A Glossary of MultiVersus terms has been added to the main menu.
• Added two new advanced tutorials covering Knockback Influence(KBI) and Elemental Interactions.
• Dodge
  • Invincibility frames are removed when canceling a dodge into an attack unless the dodge successfully dodges an attack.
  • Dodge Jump movement increase slowed by 5%

Perks

Signature

• Arya:  Wounded (removed) Betrayal (new)
  • Hitting an ally with Arya’s dagger has a longer cooldown, but the ally is given an enraged buff. If Arya dashes to a dagger on an ally, she enrages herself.
• Bugs Bunny – Lingering Love
  • Lingering Love projectile now has a cooldown.
    • “Lingering Love was forcing opponents to permanently alter the way they played against Bugs Bunny and felt too oppressive.”
• Harley – Confetti Explosion
  • Now earnable through character mastery.
• Superman: Break The Ice (new)
  • Superman deals additional damage to fighters debuffed by Ice. The additional damage scales with stacks of Ice.
    • “We want players to experiment with tying Frost Breath and Ice stacks into their gameplay!”
• Taz:  Right Back At You (removed) I Gotta Get In There! (new)
  • Taz’s allies can jump into his dogpile, giving it more damage, more knockback, longer duration, and armor.

General

• Many perks have been renamed.
• NEW General Perk – Armor Crush
  • Your team’s fully charged attacks break armor.
  • Break armor at 75% charge if your ally also selects this perk.
• Static Electricity (formerly Electric Projectile)
  • Charge time reduced to 4 seconds.
  • No longer charges without grounded movement.
• That’s Flammable, Doc! (formerly Fire Projectile)
  • Ignite duration reduced to 1 second.
  • Stacked – Duration reduced to 2 seconds.
• Ice to Beat You! (formerly Ice Projectile)
  • Debuff stacks reduced to 1.
  • Stacked – Debuff stacks reduced to 2.
• Absorb ‘n’ Go (formerly Ability Refund On Take Projectile KB)
  • Unstacked – Ability cooldown refund reduced to 7%
• Retaliation-Ready (formerly Projectile Gray Health)
  • Gray health duration reduced to 3 seconds.
  • Stacked – Gray health reduced to 4.

Character adjustments

Arya

• Neutral Air Attack:
  • Earlier branch on-hit to make combos more reliable.
  • More recovery when whiffed to allow for a slightly larger punish window.
• Aerial and Grounded Up Special: On-hit movement follow is more consistent.
• Aerial and Grounded Down Special: Cooldown reduced from 20s to 18s.
  • This is to give Arya a bit more access to armor pierce as the match progresses.
• Grounded Up Attack: Has earlier on-hit cancel frames to allow it to combo more reliably.
• Side Air Attack: Hitbox was shrunk to better match the attack animation.
• Grounded Side Attack 1: More whiff recovery to give the attack a bit more risk for its reward.

Batman

“The goal of these changes are to give Batman earned ring-out power and additional team utility. Giving a number of different attacks and combo routes that give Batman the ability to stack and maintain Weaken Debuff on the enemy.”

• Aerial and Grounded Side Special: Grapple can now be canceled out of using Jump or Dodge.
  • This should give Batman additional outplay options and give him some team utility that he was lacking previously.
• Grounded Down Special: While in smoke Batman and allies ignore enemy projectiles.
  • This should help Batman with a bit more team utility.
• Aerial and Grounded Neutral Attack: Batarang on hit now applies one stack of Weaken debuff.
• Up Air Attack 2: Applies one stack of Weaken debuff.
• Side Air Attack 2: Applies one stack of Weaken debuff.
• Grounded Up Attack: Applies one stack of Weaken debuff.

Bugs Bunny

• Aerial and Grounded Down Special: When exiting from Tunnels Bugs Bunny and allies’ invincibility frames have been reduced.
• Aerial and Grounded Neutral Special: Bugs Bunny and allies do damage to the Safe when attacking it.
  • The Safe could stay on the map for too long so we decided ally attacks can also damage the safe, reducing how long the safe stays out overall. This should provide more opportunities and openings for the enemy team to play around.
• Side Air Attack: Has more whiff recovery to allow it to be more punishable.

Finn

The goal of these changes are to reduce the easily achievable blazing movement speed Finn has access to.

• Grounded Down Attack:
  • Hit 1 and 2 chain together more reliably
  • Reduced knockback on second hit.
• Aerial and Grounded Up Special: Hitboxes now connect into each other more consistently.
• Base Movement Speed: Reduced from 2200 to 2100.
• Grounded Down Special: Boots of Speed now gives 10% increased movement speed on first purchase, 5% on the second stack and 3% movement on each subsequent stack, reduced from flat 10% on all stacks. It is now capped at 10 stacks reduced from unlimited stacking.
• Down Air Attack: Hitbox starts a bit later.
• Side Air Attack 2: Increased whiff recovery.
• Neutral Air Attack: Increased whiff recovery.
• Down Air Special: Crystal now counts as a projectile for perk application

Garnet

• Down Air Attack: Startup of move decreased.
• Neutral Air Attack: Increased base knockback.
• Aerial and Grounded Neutral Special: has additional start up time before it becomes active
• Previously the projectile slow would be active on frame 1 which made projectiles nearly useless against an aware Garnet.
• Up Air Attack: Startup of move increased.
• Side Air Attack 1: Takes a bit longer before it can be landing canceled.
• Side Air Attack 2: Added additional whiff recovery to give a larger window where the attack can be punished on misses.

Harley

• Aerial and Grounded Neutral Special:
  • The Bomb will now pierce armor.
  • Harley Bomb Equip no longer counts as an Air Special use.
  • Harley Bat Bomb will detonate after 6 seconds even when attached.
    • “This is to prevent how oppresive the bomb could be when attached to Harley. It would cause all approaches to Harley to be unfavorable.”
  • Bug Fix: Fixed an issue where the bomb would disappear when attached to a player that goes to the edge of the blastbox.
• Up Air Attack: Increased time between use when using Up Air Attack again when Up Air Attack is canceled by landing.
• Side Air Attack: Slightly more whiff recovery.
• Neutral Air Attack: Has more whiff recovery to prevent it from being a very strong and safe option for Harley.

Jake

• Aerial and Grounded Side Special:
  • Can cancel on hit earlier to allow it to more reliably combo.
  • Startup of move increased.
  • Initial Movement speed slowed from 2x to 1.5 to give more time for opponents to react.
• Up Air Attack: Can cancel on hit earlier to allow it to more reliably combo.
• Grounded Up Attack: Can cancel on hit earlier to allow it to more reliably combo.
• Grounded Down Attack: Can cancel on hit earlier to allow it to more reliably combo.
• Grounded Neutral Attack: Can cancel on hit earlier to allow it to more reliably combo.
• Weight: Lowered from 75 to 63.
• Side Air Attack: Jake’s stretch punch distance is now based on charge time. The sweet spot on the attack will only apply if charged for a long enough time.

Reindog

• Grounded Side Special: Can be canceled immediately on hit.
• Up Air Attack: Multi-hit will combo a bit more reliably.
• Grounded Up Attack: Increased hitbox size in front.
• Grounded Down Attack: Has faster startup.
• Up Air Special: Movement speed increase reduced from 2x to 1.5x.

Shaggy

• Passive: Shaggy now starts with a Sandwich with each life.
• Down Air Special: Has armor when starting descent.
• Grounded Up Attack: Has earlier on hit cancel frames and knockback pushes the opponent up and forward to help Shaggy follow up and combo.
• Grounded Down Attack: has faster startup.
• Base Movement Speed: Shaggy movement speed reduced from 2300 to 2225.

Steven

• Neutral Dodge: Bubble shield charges and refresh time now shown to the player as an ability cooldown.
• Rose’s Gaze: Requires 10 stacks increased from previous 8 stacks.
  • Bubbled opponents have more control in the air while bubbled.
  • Bubbled opponents have more control over their movement while in the bubble.
• Up Air Special: Upward movement reduced.

Superman

• Grounded Down Attack: Has armor removed from the attack, but will now break armor.
• Aerial and Grounded Down Special: Laser has longer range and now applies projectile debuffs from perks on knockback.
• Grounded Side Special: Faster startup.
• Grounded Side Attack: The jab combo will chain together more reliably.

Taz

• General Change: Many of Taz’s attacks will retain velocity when branching into other attacks making his movement less clunky.
• Neutral Special:
  • Holding Neutral Special will keep Taz’s mouth open for longer making it easier for Taz to eat projectiles.
• Grounded Down Attack: Moves further granting it greater range.
• Weight: Decreased from 70 to 63.
• Aerial and Grounded Side Special: Additional commitment before you can cancel out of this attack.
• Aerial and Grounded Down Special: Has ammo to reduce Taz’s zoning effectiveness
• Side Air Special: Taz can no longer turn and change direction of the knockback.
  • This was leading to really unearned feeling reversals, where Taz’s opponent would knock Taz off platform and try to follow up only to be reversed.
• Bug Fix: Fixed an issue where Taz could turn permanently invisible.

Tom and Jerry

The goal of these changes are to bring some more risk to the really large reward Tom and Jerry have.Tom and Jerry didn’t have enough risks and his close range attacks were a bit too safe.

• Down Air Special: Dynamite ammo cooldown increased from 9s to 12s.
• Up Air Attack: Added additional whiff recovery.
• Down Air Attack: Hit box starts a bit later.
• Side Air Attack: Added additional whiff recovery.
• Bug Fix: Jerry Slingshot from Aerial and Grounded Neutral Special will now trigger attack decay.

Velma

• Police Car: Increased health from 15 to 18.
• Neutral Dodge: Projectile Shield will only turn on if Velma has Dodge Meter.
• Up Air Special:
  • Reduced size of hitbox.
  • Reduce knockback.
  • Reduced Weaken debuff stacks from 5 to 3 on hit.
• Bug Fix: Can no longer cancel during startup.
• Grounded Up Special: Increased cooldown from 14s to 28s.
• Grounded Side Special: Velma is now only able to cancel the grapple with Grounded Up Attack.

Wonder Woman

• Sound: New Sound Effects to make hits feel more powerful.
• Side Air Attack: Increased hit pause on hits to make the attack feel more powerful.
• Base Movement Speed: decreased from 2300 to 2250.
  • Wonder Woman speed was causing her to be more oppressive than we intended.
• Aerial and Grounded Neutral Special: Cooldown increased from 8 to 13 seconds.
  • Lasso was available too frequently and made Wonder Woman oppressive to fight against.
• Side Air Special: Movement distance can no longer be controlled to make the attack more committal.
• Bug Fix: Grounded Down Attack hitbox is now more in line with the visuals.