Matchmaker (aka MM) decides some/most of the time based on the highest ranked ship (in addition to other parameters like SR etc.) in which queue you will be put in. I have seen several games (although don’t check all games) where players bring ships that are 2 ranks and lower than their highest ranked ship.
I’m not sure why they do it, maybe to get queued lower or don’t have anything else better to fill the slot but it doesn’t matter why.
Having someone using these low ships in a higher queue/match affects the match as this player is somewhat outgunned and even skill doesn’t compensate for that.
I haven even seen in a 7-9 ranked match where corp squad had one player in it with not only one ship but that ship was also only rank 4.
That should not be possible. If they want to do weird games they can do it in custom games but not the Arcade PvP.
My suggestion is to limit the range of ships ranks you can have to get allowed to be queued for an Arcade PvP match including the squads.
Not sure what the limit should be, one Rank below the highest Ranked ship is maybe too tight as there are several jumps in the ship tree going from Rank 5 to 8 or 7 to 10. It can be depended on the queue you would be put in, it allow 2 ranks lower.
Or (as an example and don’t know what the best would be) it can be depending on the rank of the highest ship so for Rank8 one rank lower and for rank 7 2 lower…
It is also annoying to see in PvE but PvE is not in the Pilot stats.
P.S. This may have been already suggested somewhere but couldn’t find anything even using google, or it is hidden in a long thread about something else.