With new players coming to the game with the Anniversary update, I've been in a lot of situations where we will have the Offer Alliance flag up, and the other crew will have no idea what they need to do to join, usually putting up the offer alliance flag as well, then sliding down the crow's nest ladder before we can explain "no, actually, you want to choose 'join alliance' and not 'offer alliance.'"
So I would propose a slight modification to the system. If in range, two ships with the offer flag up will form an alliance automatically and also retain their "offer alliance" state.
The automatic join would only occur as long as one of the ships was not already in an existing alliance.
Alternately, shift the order so that when in range, the "join alliance" option is the first box and not second, and change the iconography of the 'join alliance' option. It is jarring when offer is a picture of the heart flag and the join is a plain linking icon where the function may not be clear to players.
Additionally, it'd be great to be able to join an alliance while flying the Reaper's Mark flag for when Bilge Rat/Merchant voyages come back to the game.
