FFII - Part 1 (addendum)

Can you help me understand a bit more on that skill point thing?

Magic skill seems pretty straight forward. Cast a spell, gain magic xp for that "level" of the spell, gain a new level when you get enough xp points.

Weapon skills confuse me more.

A few things that seem to impact whether I gain a point or not:

-Whether a character gets multiple swings in during a fight:
-Whether the mobs are low level compared to my weapon skill.
-Whether I swing and hit instead of swing and miss.

Are those the things that you mean by "succeed"? Or is it more random than that? It seems like I keep hitting soft caps - like, my weapon skills on all characters hit 4 and then don't move until I get to the next zone.