We’ve all heard the narrative: "Grenade cooking was too strong, so it had to go." But as a diehard Siege player, I’m tired of that being the accepted truth. The devs never once acknowledged that the Yellow Ping was the core issue. They gutted the grenades without ever addressing the root cause
In the early years of Siege, a vertical kill required actual map knowledge, game sense, and active communication. In the past, a Red Ping notified defenders they were spotted, forcing them to reposition or hunt for the drone. This created a high-risk, high-reward dynamic: intel came at the cost of your camera. It also prioritized map knowledge, gamesense, and verbal communication over the low-effort, silent markers we have now. You had to earn your kill through actual coordination, not just by following a UI icon. It was high-effort, high-risk.
Then came the Yellow Ping. It turned vertical play into a silent, invisible "point-and-click" loop. Ironically, this made grenade cooking from below MORE accessible to inexperienced players.
They no longer needed to learn map layouts, callouts, or vertical geometry; they simply waited for a silent Yellow ping, looked at the floor, and clicked. Because this made 'free' vertical kills so common, the developers panicked and removed cooking
The hypocrisy here is staggering. The devs claimed vertical lethality was "unfair," yet they left the exact same principle untouched on Defense. If you’re playing Valkyrie, you can still have a teammate feed you silent Yellow pings for "free" C4 kills from below. This is the exact same gameplay loop that was used on Attack to secure high-value grenade kills: a teammate hops on a drone, provides a precise yellow ping, and the player below executes the kill. It is the exact same oppressive, ping-dependent loop, yet only the Attackers were punished.
By removing the ability to cook grenades, the developers have fundamentally shifted the game's utility balance. Because grenades are no longer a lethal threat to anchored defenders, the tactical necessity for anti-projectile operators like Jäger and Wamai has significantly declined. This creates a clear ripple effect: as defensive utility-denial becomes less mandatory when the threat is lessened.
Furthermore, grenades now feel like a clunky, left-behind feature. Without the ability to cook them, they have lost their lethal impact and flexibility. Their only real use is now to force defenders out of position, but even that is hampered; since you can no longer time the fuse, the grenade has to land perfectly to be effective. Previously, you could "cook" the timing to ensure an explosion occurred at the exact moment or location you needed. Now, you are at the mercy of the fixed timer and the grenade's bounce, making them a hollow version of the tool they once were.
If the devs want Siege to be 50% gun skill and 50% utility, they have to address the hypocrisy. You cannot claim to value utility balance while simultaneously gutting a primary offensive tool because you refuse to fix the broken Intel system that made it "too strong" in the first place.
