Secondaries are broken. They are too worried about patching things that help progress it faster rather than fix things that make it work the way it says it should.
Do I need to have both versions of the game to play with my friends since they do not have next gen yet or can I play cross gen?
No. If you have a next gen console (PS5, Series S, Series X) then you only need that version of the game installed on your system. You will be able to play against everyone from there.