I'm finally ready to jump into Monster Hunter World but where would I get the best experience; PS4 (not Pro) or PC? While frame rate and graphics quality are a factor, I'm also interested in the differences between communities and support. Do updates and patches come out regularly for both? Will I have problems finding a party on either platform? Anything I should be aware of before making a platform choice?

Thanks in advance!

In my experience, if your PC can run games better than a PS4 then go with PC. The big difference in terms of performance is that load times are way quicker on PC, which will end up really mattering if you get hooked and spend hundreds of hours playing.

There are plenty of people playing on PC, finding people to hunt with shouldn't be a problem.

Big difference between the two in terms of the game itself is that the updates have been staggered, so free updates like new monsters went to PC after the console versions. The new expansion that was just released, Iceborne, is only coming out in January for PC (not a big deal in your case as you will have plenty to do with the base game in the mean time).

@poprocksandsoda: I still play it on PS4 (base, not Pro) and it's never been a problem finding people to hunt with. The performance is fine, it's actually improved a little since the newest expansion I think. It's not a steady 60fps, but it's never bothered me. The load times also aren't nearly as long as some of crew (I think Jason) makes them out to be. They're certainly not snappy, but they're also few and far between in that you only load in and out of missions, never during a mission etc.

I'm on base PS4 and it's totally fine, the loads are maybe 10/15s on a HDD and you only see them about twice an hour for the most part (load into area, quicker load back to HQ). I've never noticed any inhibitive performance issues myself and consoles get the new stuff first.

EDIT: Generally finding people has been real easy on PS4 but lately, I assume due to folk mostly doing Iceborne stuff, the population has definitely waned for the base content.

Honestly if you're just getting into the game now then I think you should get it on the PC. There are zero issues these days finding people to group with and from a technical perspective it's absolutely night and day. We're talking a difference between 30 fps and unlimited framerate. A difference between upwards of minute long load times and 5 second load time(even on a standard HDD). That's not even getting into how much better the game looks(which I honestly dont think is very important anymore)

The biggest reason to get the ps4 version instead would be the ability to play Iceborne right away, but if you're just starting you wont be able to do that anyway and I can see it taking you a month or two to get to the end of the game at which point you'd get a nice break instead of heading right into iceborne. But really that's entirely up to you and how you play.

People already gave good answers. But I'm bored, so I'm gonna post anyway:

PC: Better performance; granted that the game is somewhat demanding, but performance scales pretty well with higher end hardware.
Console: Earlier access to DLC.

Either way, there is a Giant Bomb oriented Discord server for Monster Hunter on all platforms so you can link up with other dudders as opposed to randos.