Indecisiveness is probably one of the heaviest burdens on players that I see (other than lack of effort, but that's not a problem I'm even going to attempt to solve). If you want to get better at mafia, you cannot be indecisive.
Self-esteem is paramount to playing this game. You need it to make good, confident decisions in games and not be bullied or thrown around by other players.
People call me bad all the time, probably every day. If I let that bother me, I would have deleted my account or stopped playing here for that reason a very long time ago (this happens to many users). I know this because it used to bother me, when people would insult me and call me bad (mainly because I joined as a fifteen year old having never frequented another non-flash games website before), but after having only deleted my account one time, a month after joining this website (I joined Sept '11), I never deleted another of my regular accounts or left the website because people were insulting me or calling me bad. It's part of the game, and once you realize this, it might make it easier for you (or it might just turn you off from this game even more, lol).
So if somebody or a group of people insult you or call you bad, don't let it affect you too much. That being said...
Know when to take criticism.
It's really annoying how many people here do something completely suboptimal or wrong, and when they are told they are wrong, say "screw you" and don't learn from it at all. In my opinion, people like this are cancer to our game. This might happen because the people giving the criticism are swearing or insulting the person in anger instead of actually trying to help them (regardless of what they say)--but when people who actually give fair criticism actually try to help users and are denied or turned away in such a fashion, it allows for no growth of our game at all and causes two negative things to happen:
- The person taking the criticism doesn't learn from their mistakes
- The person giving the criticism is less likely to help people in the future due to the negative, childish response, and are more likely to get upset at other people, perpetuating this general problem
So while you shouldn't let somebody or a group of people calling you bad hurt your self-esteem, you should definitely man up when you do something wrong, admit it, and learn from your mistakes when you commit them.
And for the people witnessing the mistake, instead of being so overly rude and harsh all the time, be more supportive. When we are needlessly harsh and abrasive, it is more likely for these users to become negative-type-thinking users as well who may end up propagating this type of behaviour, or it may just cause these users who are trying to learn to stop playing and leave the site completely, thus stunting any potential growth for the game.
Thank you if you read this short note on game-related self-esteem; I hope it assists you in some way, shape, or form, be it game-related or non-game related--the general ideas presented in this post are also somewhat applicable to life/situations outside of Epicmafia games.
