How is guard assist / player faction supposed to work?

[tristantio]

Do the guards always assist the player with higher faction regardless of who engages?

I've had the following occur recently (tested with 55 or 56 Ogre Shd in Dark Elf illusion named Raxus for opponent, and 52 Erudite Necro for myself) in Paineel.

I perform an aggressive action on Raxus (either in response to him meleeing me, or as an initial attack) - the citizens (guild leaders) and guards attack me (I have amiable faction in erudite form, kindly in skeleton, occurs in both cases).

I feign death, confirm indifferent to guards, sick pet on Raxus, he runs to the shadow knight guild and the guild leaders agro me (despite me being successfully feign deathed).

I sit at the shadow knight guild directly next to the guild master that has continously attacked me in other test cases - Raxus comes in room and melees me directly next to the guild leader (leader never agros him in anyway).

If absolute faction is checked and the better factioned player always gets the guard assist, I guess these situations all make sense (seems I have some factioning to do).

What if two players are both faction capped (or two noobies are both at the base faction level) - do the guards do anything?