Summary: To encourage communication, allow people to keep heat when going solo or being booted, so that players can keep heat from the floor before a boss level even if they want to leave, and those who want to kill the boss can have an opportunity to fill the party.

Observations:

• Going solo or being booted from a party causes you to lose the heat from that level.
• People don't always want to do the boss level
• People who do want the boss level want a full party
• It can be frustrating when people click "up" on the elevator without telling you or dropping their unused items for the rest to pickup.

Problem:
If a party makes it to the elevator before a boss floor, but the party is split about heading down to the boss or cashing out and heading up, there is a conflict of interests.

• To be successful, the players who want to fight the boss have an incentive to boot players not continuing on, in order to invite replacements.
• To be polite, the player(s) leaving should drop her items, in case those forging on need them.
• For maximum heat, the player(s) leaving must make it to the elevator in the same instance to cash out.

In other words, players leaving have an incentive to remain silent (not being polite and dropping items), or to lie (if pressed about intent by the group). This can be irritating to the other players who had no idea of the intent to head up, and the reduced party may cause them to fail the boss, thus "wasting" energy.

As it stands, this conflict of incentives is socially unfortunate. The incentives do not encourage communication, and it is possible for people to "lose" (either they lose the heat they earned on the floor, or those attempting the boss fail as a result of the reduced party).

It would be much better for all involved if the negative consequences for polite communication were removed. The best way I see for doing this is simply to allow players to maintain heat earned on the floor where they went solo. By doing this, a polite player who wants to leave before the boss can drop her items, go solo, and keep her heat. The rest of the party then still has the opportunity to find a replacement.

Of course it doesn't fix problems with players who don't care about communication one way or the other, and choose not to say anything anyway. But at least remove the negative consequences for those who DO choose to try and be polite.