We have no evidence for this. The only proven negative change to ascension items in the game was a very (and I mean very) early change, (something like May 17) where ascension item requirements for heroes of different colours were equalised. At that point, some heroes required more ascension items to ascend (though some required fewer). SG explained what they were doing and why at the time.
Of course, we have collected many additional ways to earn ascension items during the game’s lifetime. Rare quests, elemental chests, tiered raid chests, alliance war rewards and alliance war chests were all unavailable at the game’s inception. So it seems likely that the availablility of ascension items has not decreased, but in fact dramatically increased over the two years or so E&P has been around.
(And for what little it is worth, this has been consistent with my own experience - unfarmable ascension items seemed to pile up in my storehouses at an alarming rate in 2018. There’s hardly any room left for my supply of common herbs.)
None of this has ever stopped players coming to the forum to announce that ascension item drop rates have been nerfed, based on the fact that they went through a three month dry patch. Three month dry patches happen regularly with low probability events (I’ve gone through several.) A substantial data set over time would be needed to provide any evidence of a change in drop rates, way more than just one player’s data log and a bit of confirmation bias. No one has really attempted to create this, sadly.
Moreover, you can tell that these claims are slightly dodgy by checking their timing. They tend to go something like this:
October 2017: Were drop rates just nerfed? I think they just got nerfed. Ant.
January 2018: Ant’s right, drop rates just got nerfed! Bree
March 2018: I was a sceptic, but now I see that Ant and Bree are right - drop rates just got nerfed! Chud
June 2018: I demand that SG come here to explain why they just nerfed drop rates! I can’t believe they haven’t responded to Ant and Bree and Chud’s investigation. Dee
September 2018: I didn’t believe it at first, but my whole alliance has been going crazy over the last week. Drop rates have definitely been nerfed. Ant and Bree and Chad and Dee were right! Elmo
January 2019: I’ve only been playing this game for a couple of months, but even I can tell that drop rates have been nerfed. Ant was brilliant to notice this first! Fran
I don’t know how long you’ve been playing. If it’s just three months, then perhaps you’re doing everything right but you’ve been unlucky. Don’t worry - your luck will (probably) regress to the mean, and you’ll do better. Plus, of course, you’ll get stronger, so you’ll finish rare quests, kill stronger Titans and improve your raid tier. That will all help.
If you’ve been playing for a year and have only received one 4* ascension item (a Damascus Blade, I assume, which means you have pulled no rings, no scopes, no tonics, no darts and no tabards???!!!), then you are doing something badly wrong. By completing rare quests alone you should have collected (insert number here, except I can’t be bothered calculating it) guaranteed 4* ascension items, not to mention your bounty from the multitude of other random sources.
Are you not beating the rare quests, or not bothering to complete them? What level Titan are you killing, and what loot tier do you typically fall into? What raid chest tier are you opening?
Maybe I’m freaking out too much on your behalf. If you’re still new, don’t sweat any of this. But also, don’t believe stories about how ascension items fell like rain back in the days before the internal combustion engine. They were no easier to get than they are now - I suspect they might actually have been harder to come by.
