I just played Challenge Mode for the first time and wow! This is definitely challenging. I got to 40% of the first mission!
I realize my first mistake was to play this solo without a party, but unfortunately I don't have any friends that play PSO2. I have an alliance but have never been able to party up with them. Maybe I should have joined a pick-up party, but I didn't fully understand the instructions and figured I'd play a little on my own first to get an understanding.
I started out with one monomate and punching a bunch of apes and wolves (died once) until I got jet boots. I didn't get any PAs so I normal attacked the next enemy group and was killed twice more before I got two PAs from a green box. I had to run back to the very start of the mission to try to get a few seconds to equip them before being swarmed by a huge mob group. I died for the last time after taking a few of them out with the one PA that I could actually use.
At this point, I'd be very happy to never play Challenge Mode again, but I feel like I need to in order to get enough badges for the good armor.
The instructions said something about dropping items for other players, but I didn't understand how that would be done. Also, it said I can chat and let them know what I dropped by typing <pi> in the chat each time I drop something. Which seems like a pain to type out each time, but also seems very useful.
Could veteran players of this mode from the Japanese version explain this process of dropping things (so that I can do it when I get into a party) and maybe some general tips to perform better than 40% into mission one?
Any tips would be greatly appreciated.