Some questions from earlier in the game

[Xajii]

Sorry for making my own thread, but I feel that the forum has so many things for endgame or close-to-endgame questions and I imagine others just working their way through have questions as well. Feel free to use this thread to ask your own ><

This one may have an answer plot wise later but I kinda doubt it - why does Snow's coat have symbols on the back during fights but not in cutscenes? wtf

Weapons and weapon upgrading. Namely, I just don't get the system for obtaining EXP bonuses. I've read guides but they're all for later in the game and confusing to boot. Now I don't have much of an intention of keeping lvl 1 weapons until the game opens up so I wanna start understandng this now. I've gotten bonuses randomly- even up to 1.75 for Pearlwind Staff- but can't figure out a rhythm. Are each weapon different, and what's the idea?

Currently I am upgrading Gladius (lv6), Hawkeye, (lv6) Pearlwing Staff (lv6), Deneb Duellers (lv4), and have both Power Circle and Paladin at lvl 2. I have other non upgraded ones but these seemed the best per character (unsure about Snow). Am I doin it wrong? I imagine Paladin is an important piece, but its stats are so low right now. It's hard to upgrade because I have no way of getting gil easily yet. For reference I am in Ch7 and just got use of Fang more or less.

I just don't wanna fuck myself over too hard on the way to the game opening up, so I wanna understand and take the right path asap. Thanks

[miokomioko]

Snow's weapon is the armband on his left bicept, which is inactive until he's in battle, boosting his strength and, I guess, showing off some symbols on his back.

Snow's Paladin weapon isn't very useful until you get to seriously dangerous battles where you need to switch to SEN/MED/MED just to survive some gnarly move or 15 mobs swarming you.

P.S. You can get through the game without that much trouble without upgrading anything until you perhaps get to around Ch.11~12.

[Sqwunk]

Organic components give low exp but +(exp bonus) the more you use.
Machine related parts give huge exp but -(exp bonus)

So it's a good idea to use the organic items until you get a 3x bonus, and then use as many of the huge exp items at once as you can to take advantage of the 3x bonus.

[miokomioko]

To get a instant 3x EXP Bonus just feed a weapon (assuming it has no current EXP Bonus):

36 Sturdy Bones
or
36 Barbed Tails
or
36 Vibrant Oozes
or
24 Otherworldy Bones
or
24 Diabolic Tails
or
24 Transparent Oozes