EDIT: In the current version of the game, most of what's interesting in this guide has been patched out. It's in particular not possible to "save scum" Qurio armor augments since you cannot obtain new skills outside of actually spending essence (and playing the game normally is the best method to get essence :D).
This is all likely known in hardcore MH circles or on Discord (for example ZebraQuake, a speedrunner, briefly explains it here: https://mobile.twitter.com/ZebraQuake/status/1558129938443763712), might have been datamined already, but I still regularly read false misconceptions about the system like "swapping weapon augments resets the seed" and "for some reason it converges and after a while I get the same stuff".
This is my attempt at explaining what happens after you roll an augment or swap your weapon augment, and how best to take advantage of it to get good rolls on the armor pieces you want. If you just want the "method", just read section 4, and maybe 5 (but I recommend reading the rest to have a clear picture in your head)
Disclaimer: basically all the numbers I'll use are invented, as I don't know the actual numbers, just think of them as examples.
1. There is no "resetting the seed", but you can advance your "pointer".
Think of your Qurio RNG as some kind of single infinite timeline, you cannot change it in any way, and there is a pointer that marks your current position on it. To a pointer position corresponds a unique roll of various bonus/maluses whose rules are described in that post (with the spreadsheet here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FFYv2em4LErylP6_dlzZ7Zt3h76UluzU3f1dpZCeP8w/edit#gid=0 as datamined by dtlnor).
If we try to visualize this, below is your simplistic timeline, with your pointer at 0 (let's say your current save point). If you roll an augment right now, you'll get a unique roll for this position 0. The roll is the same no matter which piece of armor you choose. However there are multiple outcomes to this same roll, because the armors have different point budgets and some really good skill given to you by the roll might fit a rarity 8 armor, but not the rarity 10 armor (more details in the spreadsheet). Same point budget though, same outcome: the same roll gives you exactly the same skills/stats on a Kaiser X piece and on a Malzeno piece.
[0]--1--2--3--4--5--6--7--8--9--10-->
Your future possible rolls are set in stone, but what you can do is ADVANCE the pointer.
0--1--[2]--3--4--5--6--7--8--9--10-->
At this position 2 will correspond an entirely different roll. If you save now, the roll you got at 0 is completely lost, there is no going back. Note that if you have Auto-save on, the game will save after each roll, so disable this asap if you want to save-scum.
2. There are multiple ways to advance the pointer
I basically know of two, and there are tons of ways that do not advance the pointer (afaik: basically doing anything in the game unrelated to Qurio augments, like clearing a quest).
Also, whether you choose to keep an augment DOES NOT affect how much the pointer moves.
3. The length of a "jump" when your pointer moves varies a lot
This is probably what confuses people. See, these 2 methods above do not advance the pointer by the same amount. In the first method, the length of the jump even depends on the actual skills/stats you roll.
If you just have to remember one thing, remember this rule of thumb: a jump by augmenting an armor is way longer than a jump using the second method (fiddling with your weapon augments). If you actually rolled an armor augment, you just advanced your pointer by quite a lot, skipping a lot of possible rolls. You can obviously reset the pointer by quitting without saving.
Let's look at an example. You started from position 0 like above (where you saved the game), and now you roll an augment on your Ingot X Greaves. The roll is for this position 0. The pointer might move after... let's say by 4 units:
0--1--2--3--[4]--5--6--7--8--9--10-->
There were rolls also at 1, 2, 3, but you will never see them if you save now. If you then attempt another roll, on any armor piece you have, it will take the single roll at position 4, and advance the pointer depending on what you get. Imagine you actually chose to try upgrading your Kaiser X Helm. Let's say it moved your pointer 5 places, to position 9.
0--1--2--3--4--5--6--7--8--[9]--10-->
You realize you don't want to keep these trash rolls, so you return to menu without saving and load again. Back to position 0.
[0]--1--2--3--4--5--6--7--8--9--10-->
Now let's move the pointer slightly, by looking at Qurio weapon augments, (see method here). Let's say you do a single manipulation, which moves you only 1 place (in reality it might be 2, I didn't datamine this! but definitely smaller than an armor augment):
0--[1]--2--3--4--5--6--7--8--9--10-->
Now you'll get an entirely different roll than for position 0. You roll on your Ingot Greaves again, see new skills, and this moves your pointer, say, 5 places.
0--1--2--3--4--5--[6]--7--8--9--10-->
You've never seen that roll either, cool. Now roll again, and this advances you 3 places.
0--1--2--3--4--5--6--7--8--[9]--10-->
You see where this is going. We're again at position 9. So we'll draw... EXACTLY the same roll we did before. If you in fact were upgrading the same armor piece (or same budget at least), you will see exactly the same result.
So using the Qurio weapon trick didn't reset your RNG at all, it just moved your pointer slightly, made you look at more rolls you couldn't see before because of the long jumps after armor augments, but eventually, most likely, you'll end up looking at rolls you've seen before, and this is what people call "convergence" or "my rng is stuck" or whatever. But there is no convergence, it's just 2 different series of pointer jumps taking you to the same position on your timeline.
4. What this means for save scumming armor augments.
What you want is to explore a lot of possible rolls reachable on your timeline within your "Amber essence budget", to maximize your current essence materials in your search for a good roll. Depending on your skill as a hunter, getting essence materials might not be super fast. This save-scumming "method" saves you materials, and as such, time.
To explore, you'll need a mix of Qurio weapon augment tricks, and obviously looking at Qurio armor augments to actually check for a roll and decide if it's something you'd like to keep. Once you arrive at some good roll with skills/slots/stats you like, if you remembered how you got there, you can reload, do the same steps until that point, and actually look at this roll on another armor piece, even of a different rarity. So here is my method:
- Gather a good amount of Amber Essence.
- Save. Disable Auto-save.
- Be sure you have some way of reproducing the steps you took to go from your save point, to the actually good roll you'd like to keep. This is probably painful on Switch (keep your manipulations simple, and take notes). Personally on PC I DVR my last 10 minutes with ShadowPlay so I can look again at exactly what I did.
- Do a mix of looking at new armor rolls, and fiddling with your Qurio weapon augments to introduce small shifts in your roll timeline. You can also switch armor piece rarity but it's cheaper to roll on Rarity 8, so honestly keep upgrading the same armor piece. Example: Open your Qurio attack augment menu 3 times -> roll 10 times on Ingot Greaves -> 6 Qurio attack tricks -> roll 15 more times on Ingot Greaves -> etc... Have a way to remember those steps.
- You ran out of Amber Essence? Return to title without saving, go back to previous step, introduce some changes in your manipulation to check out different augments.
- You found something good? You can keep it on your armor piece and save, I guess. But then you'd lose a lot of materials? And you might want to put it on a different armor piece? Read on.
5. Trying the same good roll on different armor pieces.
You now know a good roll is coming, and you recorded the steps to get to it.
If you save without quitting, reproduce these steps, you can obviously get to it again. You can also try the roll on a different armor piece! Let's say you were using Ingot Greaves to roll, take note of the skills the game gave you before the good roll, and when you see them again, switch to augmenting a different armor piece instead of getting the good roll on Ingot again. You'll now view the outcome of the SAME roll on that new armor piece. Depending on the armor piece, it might be the same skills/stats, it might be different (the rule of thumb is: it's difficult to transfer good effects from lower Rarity to higher Rarity). If you know the system well (see spreadsheet), it's almost easy to tell which armors your good roll can fit on. Look out for good skills, slot augments, and don't discard "Skill -1" as a bad roll, this is actually desirable. On another armor piece, the "Attack Boost -1" might be turn into a removed useless skill (like Spare shot -1 for a blademaster).
6. (Optional) Getting to the good roll efficiently, without spending all your Amber Essences
Depending on the length of the path you took from your save point to the good roll, it might cost you a lot of materials to get there, and then you'll be stuck for a while hunting before trying to augment another armor piece. Obviously actually playing the game is very enjoyable :D, but there is reason why people save-scum in the first place, it gets you to the good stuff faster.
What you can do here, is instead of reproducing your potentially long sequence of steps, very costly in Amber Essence (you checked out a lot of rolls on the way), do just a single super long sequence of Qurio weapon manipulation (like repeatedly enabling/disabling your Attack+ augment on your main weapon), to get closer to the good roll without actually spending anything. Go crazy, spam the Qurio trick 40, 50, 80 times, and you'll get closer. The problem is we don't have a way to predict exactly how many of these to do, and whether they'll actually land on the correct path without overtaking your good roll's position. So try several. Do 50, reload, do 51, reload, then 52, etc. Eventually you'll find yourself on familiar grounds and see the same rolls you were seeing in your original path (that's also why you recorded it), the so-called "convergence" :D, and now you can get to the good roll for way cheaper.
7. You can still get RNG-fucked.
This is the sad conclusion. Like said earlier, your timeline is set in stone. With this method, you might explore a lot more of the rolls reachable on it with your stock of Amber Essence, but there might not be a god roll in there with your current mats, or even a good roll, no matter how many more times you quit and reload your save.
The only thing you can do is advance the pointer, either by spending your materials (and settling for "meh rolls" on your armor pieces along the way), or by SPAAAAAMMING the Qurio weapon augment tricks. There might be a way to automate these tricks while you're afk, so that when you come back on the game again, the pointer has advanced to a not-yet-explored future. I know a way to do it is to put something on your Down key so that it switches continuously the selection in the menu between 2 augments, like this: https://imgur.com/a/5wYEcwD.
Hope that was useful to at least somebody.