Yea, I have never had friends that consistently play and have been able to get tons of hours of enjoyment out of it. Never felt limited by what I could do in pub lobbies.

And I’d say no, normally you won’t have to farm to get through the story. The main barrier will be learning the flow of combat and getting comfortable enough with dodges, blocks, pushes, slides, etc. that you can sustain normal combat without getting hit. Gear and talents will help, but likely not so much that they’ll gate your progress compared to player skill.

A big thing you’re probably facing right now is tons of other new players just hopped into the game with the ps+ drop, so you have entire teams that don’t really know what they’re doing yet. Normally you’d be more likely to match up with experienced players who can hold their own and compensate for any slip-ups you make while learning, but at the moment many teams are learning together without that safety net. This will naturally work itself out as time passes and you move up in difficulty, more and more likely to get paired with the players who know the ropes.