OP:
What year is the Mac you want to install HS on?
I'm not sure if it's possible to coax HS to install on HFS+. Seems to me that the installer will "convert" an HFS+ drive to APFS as a part of the install process.
But there's a way around this if you don't want to use terminal, or can't get it to work.
It involves a little work, but again,
it WILL work if nothing else does.
Here we go:
1. Install HS onto an EXTERNAL drive (can be HDD or SSD). If the installer converts it to APFS, don't worry about it. It's not going to matter.
2. Download an older version of CarbonCopyCloner from here:
bombich.com
I believe
the version you want is CCC 5.
CCC is FREE TO USE for this purpose, for 30 days.
3. Next, you want to BACK UP the "target Mac". It's going to be erased.
4. Use the HS external drive you just created to boot the Mac.
5. Open disk utility.
Go to the "view" menu (if there is one) and choose "show all devices".
(VERY IMPORTANT that you do the step above. But if there isn't a view menu, skip to next)
Select the internal drive from "the list on the left" and erase it to "Mac OS extended, journaling enabled, GUID partition format".
Quit disk utility.
6. Now open CarbonCopyCloner and do a "backup" of the external drive to the internal drive.
What you're doing is "cloning" the new OS install over, but doing so SHOULD NOT change the disk format on the target drive (the internal drive).
When done, you will have a fresh copy of High Sierra on the internal drive which is still formatted to HFS+.
YES -- this is MORE WORK.
But again, it WILL WORK if nothing else does.
Good luck.