Varanis gave you perfect info. I’ll expand on a few things.

First...the alchemy certification, sigh. Yes, it glitches. Pick up the quest again. You will not get new guaranteed spawn nodes, unfortunately. You need to find Mountain Flower from *anywhere*. If you want to hunt it, it’s mostly in fields in mountain areas. You could also buy what you need from a guild store. Or put out a zone chat “my certification quest glitched, can anyone send me xx mountain flowers?” They’re not valuable, people might pitch in.


How to find stations

All types have an icon and are marked on maps. Sometimes all stations in a little area are one icon, that you hover over and on the right you see “cooking fire, woodworking station, etc.” station types are: woodworking, cloth, blacksmith, jewelry, provision (cook fire), enchanting, alchemy, outfit (dying armor and changing appearance) and transmute (trait changes, but don’t worry about this for now).


What are set stations?

Powerful gear sets exist in ESO that add buffs as your character wears more pieces from that set. Most sets offer benefits as you add a 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th piece, with the 5th piece buff being something big.

These set stations are located out in the world. They have a special map icon, then when you visit a station you’ll see the name of the set noted. For example, when you’re character faces a station and it says “Woodworking (Night Silence),” this means it can make this special set. At these stations you will have the option to craft “plain” gear or the set pieces by scrolling back and forth in the crafting menu. Players can also purchase set stations for their homes, so you might encounter them in player housing.

All of these sets require trait knowledge to make. For example, night silence is a “two trait set.” This means that to make any given piece, you need to have researched two traits for that piece. If I want to make a night silence robe piece, I need to have researched two different traits in “light armor...robes” to unlock it. Hundings Rage is a “six trait set,” so to make a robe I need to research six different traits for robes.



Which craft skills to learn?

I level all six (now seven) craft lines on all characters, just so they have them in case I need them. But making a character a crafter requires a LOT of skill points. Each craft has ~25 skill point passives, but you don’t necessarily need to invest in all. Assume about 20 points for a character to be a master crafter in each skill.

Some players put all crafting on one character, and some split them up between a couple of characters. For example, your sorc might handle enchanting, provisioning and alchemy, but pass the four equipment trades off to an alternate character. There are plenty of points in the game to go either way. If you think you’ll play the heck out of your sorc and do all the quests and hunt lots of shards, he can craft everything. If that becomes boring, maybe build a crafting alt. And you don’t have to decide now...if your sorc crafts but then runs into a skill point shortage, it’s easy enough to respec and roll a crafter later. Everything can be undone.

And if you hate the crafting system, ignore it. You can get by without crafting if you don’t like it. There are plenty of us master crafters to help with anything you need if you prefer killing trolls to making staves, lol.


Why craft gear?

For the four equipment lines, crafting means you can make your own gear. This is a little helpful. There are powerful crafted sets in the game, and you will *really* benefit from learning how to use them, but there are also a bazillion master crafters who would likely help you out and build your gear.

To get an idea of craft sets, go check out a station somewhere in the world or a guild members house, and learn about the buffs you get by adding more pieces. That’s why you wear craft sets.


Why craft consumables?

You’ll be using a lot of glyphs in the game, and a LOT of food and potions. Being able to make your own is really helpful. As a first step, you should always be playing with a food/drink buff, probably + max health and magic. Learn about these recipes/food, and check out how they help.


What are the benefits for crafters? (besides above)

Depending on level and which passives you spend on, you can expect to get:

- you can upgrade gear and make better runes for cheaper.
- You will pull better / more materials out of things you refine
- You can do daily writs on the crafts, which are probably the easiest way for a new player to build up a cash and mat reserve. The rewards for daily writs are considerably valuable.


Research?

As mentioned, trait research is necessary to craft the better sets...and to make good gear for yourself. The system starts out fast, then slows as you learn more and more. Start playing with research by using junk you pick up after you play, before you deconstruct everything. For gear, I recommend focusing on learning training and divines first. Tip...there’s always training junk on the boats where the game first drops you in the starter cities.


Motifs?

Adding to what Varanis said, you may use an Outfit Station to create a look made up of any motifs you know. It’s a confusing system, but you can go play with it if you like. You basically build a skin for your character that you can put over whatever the actual gear you have looks like.

All of your characters get one free outfit slot. So you can pay a little gold to make an outfit, then flip between it and your gear or costume whenever you like. Outfits are by character...they don’t share between like costumes. But you can create the same outfit on different characters if you like.

Note: when any character on your account learns a motif page, it opens the ability to use that item in an outfit for ANY character on your account This is important, thus the bold. Let’s say your mag sorc finds the motif “dwemer chests” and learns it. This unlocks dwemer chests on the outfit stations for any character you ever create. Anybody can make an outfit with Dwemer Chests after someone learns it. So if you spread motif knowledge around, everyone gets all known motifs at the outfit stations. But as a general rule, I advise picking an equipment crafter and learning all motifs on that character.